Daily monitor

According to Mr. Vintoniak, the CEO of the consulting agency “Infagro”, the production of milk in Ukraine will drastically shrink in 2009.

Dniprovagonmash [DNVM, U/R], the large domestic carriage producer owned by TAS Group, has announced its financial results for 2008.

Ukrzaliznitsya (UZ) signed a leasing agreement with Luhanskteplovoz [LTPL UZ, U/R] for the supply of six electric locomotives, four electric trains, two diesel trains, and one shunting locomotive.

According to Interfax, Coca-Cola is going to acquire the non-alcoholic beverage plant in Zaporizhzhia.

During the EGM held on February 26, the decision about the necessity of the state’s participation in the capital increase of Rodovid Bank [RODB UZ, N/R] was made.

Yesterday, National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) increased the wholesale electricity tariff and dropped oblenergos’ 2009 investment programs, along with a respective cut in transmission and supply tariffs.

According to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), the share of bad loans in Ukraine increased by 17 b.p. to 2.44% in January.

The National Bank of Ukraine’s Acting Head, Anatoliy Shapovalov, announced that, on February 27, the Board of the NBU is going to discuss the issue of providing state capital to Ukrainian banks.

Standard & Poor’s, a rating agency, has cut Ukraine’s long-term and short-term foreign currency rating to CCC+/C from B/B, with a negative outlook. Similarly, Ukraine’s local currency ratings were lowered to B-/C from B+/B.

The National Bank of Ukraine’s Acting Head, Anatoliy Shapovalov, announced that the NBU and bankers have reached a pre-agreement about an arrangement that will allow borrowers to repay their foreign exchange loans according to the NBU’s intervention exchange rate (7.9 USD/UAH), which is now significantly lower than the interbank rate (8.9 USD/UAH) or the cash exchange rate at banks, according to which borrowers buy USD to repay their foreign exchange debts to banks.