Дослідження стану тіньової економіки в Україні, яке провела компанія Ernst & Young за підтримки компанії, Mastercard, встановило, яка частка від валового внутрішнього продукту в державі перебуває в тіні, повідомив Національний банк України.

За першими результатами цього дослідження, майже чверть від ВВП України за 2018 рік – 23,8 відсотка, або 846 мільярдів гривень – перебуває в тіні.

Із них 19,7% від ВВП (702 млрд грн) становить готівкова тіньова економіка, 4,1% від ВВП (144 млрд грн) – домашнє виробництво товарів для власного кінцевого використання, тобто негрошова тіньова економіка.

Як мовиться в повідомленні, дослідження розрізняє готівкову тіньову економіку «наслідкову» і «пасивну», залежно від того, хто від неї виграє. У так званій наслідковій тіньовій економіці обидві сторони угоди отримують вигоду від неї, наприклад, при оплаті готівкою замовник не вимагає рахунку й отримує знижку, а постачальник, не реєструючи трансакцію, заощаджує на податкових витратах. У так званій пасивній тіньовій економіці вигоду від неї отримує лише продавець цього товару чи послуги, який, наприклад, продає товар за готівку без чеку і не сплачує податки.

Дослідження в Україні свідчить, що більш ніж чверть (26,2%) обсягу готівкової тіньової економіки (це 5,3% від ВВП або 190 млрд гривень) – це наслідкова тіньова економіка, де ініціаторами розрахунку готівкою є обидві сторони – і продавець, і покупець. А решта (73,8%) загального обсягу української тіньової економіки (або 14,4% від ВВП – 512 млрд грн) – це пасивна тіньова економіка, ініціатором якої є продавець.

Як зазначено в повідомленні, стимулювання безготівкових електронних розрахунків має суттєво зменшити саме рівень пасивної тіньової економіки. Тим часом, за даними компанії Mastercard, наразі лише 38% малого і середнього бізнесу в Україні надають клієнтам можливість оплати за товари і послуги безготівково, тобто 62% таких підприємств працюють виключно з готівкою.

Результати дослідження, здійсненого в рамках укладеного Меморандуму про співробітництво з Міністерством розвитку економіки, торгівлі та сільського господарства України, Національним банком України і Державною службою статистики України, презентували під час робочої зустрічі з представниками низки державних органів у Нацбанку.

Компанія Ernst & Young провела схожі дослідження в 33 країнах світу, серед яких Чехія, Польща, Словенія, Словаччина, Хорватія, Болгарія, Боснія і Герцеговина, Сербія й інші. Історично рівень тіньової економіки в цих країнах коливався від 10,1% до 26,9% від обсягу ВВП.
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A Russian woman aboard the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan has become the first Russian citizen to be diagnosed with COVID-19, Russia said Monday.The woman on the ship will be transferred to a hospital and receive treatment, the Russian Embassy in Japan said in its Facebook posting. It wasn’t immediately clear whether that would be in Russia or Japan.The virus, which emerged in central China in December, has infected 454 people on that particular cruise ship. Globally, the virus has infected more than 71,000 people, killing 1,770 patients in mainland China and five others elsewhere. China has instituted strict lockdown measures on over 60 million people in central Hubei province.In January, Russia reported two confirmed cases of COVID-19 and hospitalized two Chinese citizens, who have since recovered.Since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, the Russian government has halted most of its air traffic to China. All trains connecting Russia to China and North Korea have been suspended and the Russian land border with China and Mongolia is closed.Moscow has temporarily stopped issuing work visas to Chinese citizens and Chinese students who had left for the Lunar New Year vacation have been asked not to resume their studies in Russian universities until March 1.Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has said that Russia may start deporting foreigners infected with the virus.
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Lawyers for Equatorial Guinea told United Nations judges Monday that French authorities illegally seized a mansion in Paris that the African nation insists operated as its embassy. The building was seized as part of a money laundering investigation into the son of the central African nation’s president.
“France has submitted my country to treatment which is totally arbitrary, discriminatory, and consequently contrary to international law,” Carmelo Nvono-Nca, who led Equatorial Guinea’s legal team, told judges as public hearings in the case got underway.
The International Court of Justice case is focused on the diplomatic status of a multimillion-euro (dollar) mansion on one of the French capital’s most prestigious streets, Avenue Foch.
French authorities seized it in 2012 as they investigated Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue for misuse of public funds and money laundering. Equatorial Guinea argues that, under an international treaty governing diplomatic relations, France had no right to seize the building as it had been operating as the country’s embassy since 2011.
Equatorial Guinea filed a case with the world court in 2016 arguing that Obiang, who is his country’s vice president, had immunity from prosecution. However the United Nation’s highest court said in 2018 that it did not have jurisdiction over that issue and narrowed the case down to the status of the mansion.
An appeals court in France a week ago upheld Obiang’s 2017 conviction and three-year suspended sentence for embezzling millions of dollars in public money, and fined him 30 million euros.
The conviction also ordered the Avenue Foch mansion confiscated, but the ruling cannot be carried out pending the outcome of the world court case.
Nvono-Nca told judges that France was continuing “its attacks against the dignity of my country which started almost 10 years ago before the French courts. The French courts where our vice president was accused — and even our head of state was accused — of crimes which in our view, simply never occurred.”
Lawyer Michael Wood told the court that Equatorial Guinea would be seeking compensation for “material and moral” damage caused by France’s actions.
Lawyers representing France are scheduled to present their arguments on Tuesday. Judges will likely take months to issue a ruling.  
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Elton John intends to play his remaining shows in New Zealand and Australia,  his tour promoters said Monday, a day after illness caused the singer to lose his voice and cut short a performance.Video clips posted online by fans at Sunday night’s performance showed John breaking down in tears as he told the cheering crowd he couldn’t go on any longer. The 72-year-old singer said he had walking pneumonia and was assisted off stage.Tour promoters Chugg Entertainment said John was resting and doctors were confident he would recover. They said a concert planned for Tuesday in Auckland would be delayed until Wednesday on the advice of doctors.”Elton John was disappointed and deeply upset at having to end his Auckland concert early last night,” the promoters said in their statement.The concert was part of John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour. As well as the delayed performance on Wednesday, John is scheduled to play again in Auckland on Thursday and then seven performances in Australia before traveling to the U.S. and Canada.He thanked the concert attendees via an Instagram post  and apologized for ending the show early.”I want to thank everyone who attended tonight’s gig in Auckland. I was diagnosed with walking pneumonia earlier today, but I was determined to give you the best show humanly possible,” John wrote. “I played and sang my heart out, until my voice could sing no more. I’m disappointed, deeply upset and sorry. I gave it all I had.”New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she watched the show and got to meet John for about five minutes before he started playing.”You could tell that he wasn’t feeling well and he said he wasn’t feeling well,” Ardern said. “So I think you could see that on the stage last night, which I think is just a credit to his commitment to his fans.’’Ardern said the pair discussed politics and how her toddler daughter Neve loves to dance to his music. John has previously expressed his admiration for the New Zealand leader.The New Zealand Herald  reported that John told the crowd he was ill but that he didn’t want to miss the show. He slumped on a stool and required medical attention after performing “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” but recovered and continued to play, the newspaper reported. Later, as he he attempted to sing “Daniel,” he realized he had no voice left and was escorted off stage.John had just returned to New Zealand after performing at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles. He won an Oscar for best original song for his theme song for the movie “Rocketman.’’According to the Mayo Clinic, walking pneumonia is an informal term for a milder form of pneumonia that isn’t severe enough to require hospitalization or bed rest. It affects the respiratory tract and is most often caused by bacteria.
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The Taliban appeared confident Monday it will sign a peace agreement with the United States by the end of this month in the presence of international guarantors to close the 18-year-old war in Afghanistan.A senior leader of the insurgent group told a pro-Taliban news agency the two adversaries have mutually decided to hold the signing ceremony in Doha, the capital of Qatar, which hosted the 18-month U.S.-Taliban negotiations.Abdul Salam Hanafi, a central member of the Taliban negotiating team and its political office in Doha, gave no date, but insurgent sources have previously said the deal would be inked on February 29.Hanafi said representatives from all neighbors of Afghanistan, the United Nations Security Council, Islamic countries and European Union will be among those invited to witness the ceremony.Soon after the agreement is inked, he added, Americans and the Afghan government will set free 5,000 insurgent prisoners, and the Taliban would also release around 1,000 detainees from its custody.Washington, however, has stressed it would move forward on a peace agreement with the Taliban only if a mutually agreed 7-day reduction in violence truce is successfully implemented in Afghanistan.U.S. officials say the short-term truce reached last week will come into force “very soon” but they have not mentioned any date, though insurgent sources claim it will take effect on February 22.Members of a Taliban delegation leaving after peace talks with Afghan senior politicians in Moscow, Russia May 30, 2019.The understanding commits the warring sides to halt offensive operations for seven days. If both sides keep their commitment, they will return to the table to sign the peace agreement Taliban and U.S. negotiators have finalized in marathon meetings over the past year.Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah also told the Council of Ministers in Kabul Monday that the U.S.-Taliban peace agreement has been “finalized.” He said “the signing of the agreement is based on the reduction in violence over seven days and then it (the peace process) will continue,” apparently referring to the short-term truce.The agreement provides a timetable for the withdrawal of American and coalition forces from Afghanistan, insurgent counterterrorism guarantees, and a process for political reconciliation between Afghan parties to the conflict.Hanafi said no date and venue has been set for intra-Afghan negotiations on permanently ending hostilities and power-sharing in post-war Afghanistan. But those negotiations, he insisted, would begin only after the prisoner release process is completed.U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper told a security conference in Germany last week the reduction in violence deal with the Taliban “looks very promising” but it was not without risk.Esper said the prospective peace agreement could reduce U.S. troop levels to about 8,600 — from around 13,000 currently in Afghanistan.The Defense Secretary would not say whether all American forces would eventually pull out of Afghanistan and reiterated U.S. counterterrorism missions would remain in place.U.S. officials, however, have stressed the troop withdrawal process would be linked to progress achieved in Taliban-Afghan peace negotiations.
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The United States and Europe appear divided over the health of the transatlantic relationship following a key security conference in Germany over the weekend, attended by hundreds of political and military leaders. Eruopeans accused Washington of ‘rejecting the idea of an international community’ – but the U.S. said the alliance is in good shape. As Henry Ridgwell reports from the Munich conference, there is an emerging disagreement between Western allies over what exactly represents the biggest threat to Western democracy
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 The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in China surpassed 70,000 Monday while two planeloads of quarantined Americans took off from Tokyo for home.Hubei province, the center of the outbreak, reported 100 more deaths, bringing the death toll in China to nearly 1,800. Five deaths outside the mainland have also been confirmed in France, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan.The number of new cases in Hubei is only slightly higher than the number reported Sunday but down from those reported Friday and Saturday. Chinese officials say this is a sign that China has the outbreak under control.But World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted Sunday that “it is impossible to predict which direction this epidemic will take.”While China has recently been complimented for the way it has handled the outbreak and its efforts to contain it, the WHO is still asking for more information on how China is making its diagnoses.Chinese state media Saturday published a speech President Xi Jinping made Feb. 3 that shows Chinese authorities knew more about the seriousness of the coronavirus at least two weeks before it made the dangers known to the public. It wasn’t until late January that officials said the virus could spread between humans.In his Jan. 7 speech, Xi ordered the shutdown of the cities most affected by the virus. Those lockdowns began Jan. 23.  Meanwhile, two U.S. State Department chartered fights took off from Tokyo early Monday, carrying Americans who had been quarantined for two weeks aboard the cruise ship Diamond Princess.More than 355 infected people were diagnosed with coronavirus on board the cruise ship and all of the evacuated passengers will be quarantined for another 14 days in the U.S.Also Sunday, the State Department said it is looking into the case of a U.S. citizen who was diagnosed with the coronavirus after departing the cruise ship Westerdam, whose passengers tested negative for the virus before disembarking in Cambodia.Malaysian medical authorities said the passenger, and 83-year-old woman, twice tested positive for the virus upon arriving in Malaysia after showing signs of a viral infection, a State Department spokesperson said Sunday. She is the first person from the Westerdam to test positive. Her husband tested negative.A group of ambulances from the Solano EMS Cooperative stage at the visitor center at Travis Air Force Base, adjacent to Fairfield, California, Feb. 16, 2020.The spokesperson said U.S. authorities to not have “sufficient evidence to determine when the passenger may have been exposed and where.”  The spokesperson said no more information could be shared because of privacy considerations, but said the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lampur is in close contact with local authorities and the patient.
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Syrian government forces Sunday took control of several villages in the northwestern province of Idlib and the neighboring province of Aleppo, in a continuing push to retake territory from rebels.Local sources reported that forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime captured several villages near the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib, while advancing on the villages of Maarat Al-Ateeq, Babis and several others in Aleppo’s northwestern countryside, which had been under the control of Syrian rebels for nearly eight years.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor that has researchers across the war-torn country, said that fierce clashes continued Sunday between Syrian government troops on one side and rebel fighters and jihadist militants on the other.State news agency SANA also reported rapid advances by Syrian troops “against terrorist groups” by expanding their operations on multiple fronts in the northwestern countryside of Aleppo and several parts of Idlib. State-run media in Syria refers to all armed groups in the country as terrorists.This fighting comes two days after Syrian government forces seized control of the M5 highway, which connects the capital Damascus in the south to Aleppo in the north. The northern part of the strategic road had been under rebel control since the beginning of Syria’s war in 2012.Internally displaced Syrians from western Aleppo countryside, ride on a vehicle with belongings in Hazano near Idlib, Syria, Feb. 11, 2020.Fleeing civiliansSupported by Russian airpower and Iranian-backed militias, Syrian regime forces for months have been trying to take control of Idlib, the last major rebel stronghold in Syria.Idlib province has been home to nearly 3 million people. But the ongoing Syrian-led offensive has displaced more than 800,000 residents from Idlib, according to the U.N.Idlib is largely controlled by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al-Qaida affiliate in Syria. Other Turkish-backed rebels also have a presence in the northwestern Syrian province.Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said at a news conference Saturday that the presence of thousands of jihadists in Idlib “does not justify the indiscriminate bombardment of the civilian population.”“What is needed now as a matter of humanitarian concern for the people of Idlib and as a matter of basic avoidance of another refugee crisis, is firm pressure on [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to stop,” he said.Since the beginning of Syria’s eight-year conflict, Russia has been a staunch supporter of Assad’s government.Offensive to continueAymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, a researcher at Swansea University in Wales who studies militant groups in Syria, says despite international calls for halting the assault in Syria’s northwest, Syrian troops are likely to continue their push.“There might be some pause in the fighting, but that will only be of a temporary nature,” he told VOA, adding that, “this is a campaign to retake all of Idlib.“The next immediate step for Syrian regime troops is moving to Aleppo’s western countryside,” he said.Parts of Aleppo’s rural areas along the border with Idlib are under the control of rebel fighters.Turkey’s optionsTurkey, which backs the Syrian rebel fighters, has expressed concerns about a new humanitarian crisis that could emerge on Turkey’s border with Syria if no cease-fire is achieved in Idlib.Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Sunday that a Turkish delegation was to visit Moscow Monday to discuss the situation in Idlib.Shadi al-Abdullah, a Syrian journalist based in Turkey, says given the lack of support from Turkey’s international allies, Ankara has limited options with respect to Idlib.“For the Turks, it is either going into a military confrontation with forces that want Idlib to return to Assad or preserving what’s left from areas under the opposition control in Idlib and Aleppo’s countryside,” he told VOA.But a direct military confrontation at this point would be unlikely, he said.Turkey has 12 observation posts in Idlib as part of a 2018 deal with Russia. The deal required Ankara to remove all extremist groups from the province, some of which are tied to the al-Qaida terrorist group.  In exchange the Syrian government agreed to delay a long-planned military offensive on Idlib.But Turkey allegedly has failed to implement its part of the deal and thus the regime backed by Russia in April 2019 proceeded with its original plan of launching a full-scale military offensive to recapture Idlib from rebel forces.   Some of the Turkish posts were recently overrun by advancing Syrian government forces. Syrian government attacks have reportedly killed 13 Turkish soldiers in Idlib this month.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently said that if Syrian troops didn’t withdraw from its positions in Idlib by the end of February, Turkey would take military action.Ankara has already deployed thousands of troops and military vehicles across the border into Idlib to reinforce its current military presence there.US stanceU.S. officials have condemned the Syrian government’s offensive on Idlib, expressing Washington’s support for Turkey after its forces came under attack by Syrian troops.“The United States once again condemns the continued, unjustifiable, and ruthless assaults on the people of Idlib,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a recent statement.“We stand by our NATO ally Turkey in the aftermath of the attack, which resulted in the death of multiple Turkish personnel serving at an observation post used for coordination and de-escalation, and fully support Turkey’s justified self-defense actions in response,” Pompeo added. 
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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday that he doesn’t believe the U.S. will pursue war with his country, because it will harm President Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection bid.Rouhani said that Trump knows that war with Iran will “ruin” his chances of winning the 2020 U.S. presidential election.The Iranian leader added that war would be harmful to U.S. interests and those of its regional allies, as well as Iran.“I think the Americans aren’t after war since they know what harm it could do them,” said Rouhani in a news conference.He said that Persian Gulf nations like the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar stood a lot to lose if conflict between Iran and the U.S. turns to war.Tehran and Washington came close to an open conflict in January, when a U.S. drone strike killed Iran’s top general, Qasem Soleimani, outside Baghdad. Iran retaliated with missile strikes on a base housing U.S. troops in Iraq.Tensions have been escalating steadily since Trump pulled the U.S. out of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran.Rouhani reiterated that the U.S. should rejoin the nuclear deal if it wants to return to negotiations.“We will finally get the enemy to sit at the negotiating table some day, like before,” said Rouhani, referring to the U.S.Rouhani also encouraged Iranians to turnout in large numbers for parliamentary elections on Friday, as a show of defiance against the U.S.“Americans will not be happy with a high-turnout,“he said. “Surely they will be happy with a low-turnout election.”Iran’s parliamentary elections are seen as a test of the popularity of Rouhani’s relatively moderate and pro-reform bloc led. His government, however, has mostly struggled to deliver on campaign promises to improve people’s lives as Iran’s economy buckles under the weight of U.S. sanctions.Iranian authorities have also barred thousands of parliamentary candidates from running, mainly reformists and moderates.Friday’s elections could strengthen the hand of Iranian hard-liners, who champion confronting the West.
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