Daily monitor

Ukraine’s law makers voted yesterday to hold the country’s presidential elections on January 17, 2010. The vote in the Verkhovna Rada (VR), which was supported by 399 of 442 legislators present, is the legislature’s second attempt to set the date, as a prior call to hold the election on October 25, 2009, was struck down by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

The Supreme Court of Ukraine yesterday invalidated the ruling of the Supreme Commercial Court of Ukraine on Dniproenergo’s [DNEN UZ, U/R] share issue and thus cancelled DNEN’s 52% additional share issue from 2007.

The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has issued a resolution which regulates the order of lending to the Deposit Guarantee Fund (DGF).

Sokrat participated in June macroeconomic consensus forecast organized by the Ukrainian business magazine Expert. The meeting involved 14 Ukrainian leading economists representing a variety of private sector companies, think tanks and academia.

President Viktor Yushchenko shot down a bill targeting a 94% increase of beer excise duty that had been previously adopted by the Parliament. The main reason for the disapproval, the President stated, was the inappropriate allocation of the additional income from the tax increase.

Astarta’s [AST PW, BUY] major shareholders – Viktor Ivanchyk and Valeriy Korotkov – bought 93.8 thsd (0.38%) additional shares in Astarta holding. As a result, the company’s free float slightly decreased to 19.62%.

According to the Ukrainian news agency, Azovmash, one of the leading enterprises in Ukraine’s heavy engineering sector, which includes freight railway producers Azovhalmash [AZGM UZ, U/R], Mariupol Heavy Machinery Plant [MZVM UZ, U/R] and Poltavkhimmash [PHMSH UZ, U/R] – decreased freight car output by 19.7% YoY to 3032 units in 1Q09.

Concern Galnaftogaz [GLNG UZ, Speculative BUY] disclosed its consolidated IFRS 1Q09 results.

KfW expressed its intention to finance the reconstruction of the second fossil fuelled power unit at Centerenergo’s [CEEN UZ, U/R] Tripillya Power Plant.

According to IKS-Consulting’s monthly statistics, the number of Ukrtelecom [UTLM UZ, U/R] mobile users increased by 5.7% MoM to 277.6 thsd clients in May 2009. Overall, the number of mobile users decreased by a meager 0.2% to 55.13 mln customers. The penetration level decreased by 0.2% to 119.6%.