Daily monitor

Ukraine's Minister of Transportation and Communications Iosyp Vinsky has spoken in favor of the privatization of Ukrtelecom [UTEL UZ, U/R], which is Ukraine's fixed-line incumbent.

Last week at its AGM, Slavutych [SLAV UZ, BUY] shareholders approved an additional issue of 96 mln shares at a par value of USD 0.14.

The Ministry of Finance of Ukraine has announced that Ukraine’s foreign debt dropped 1.4% MoM to USD 10.48 bln in October, while domestic debt grew 6.8% to UAH 17.67 bln (USD 3.07 bln at a 5.75 USDUAH exchange rate).

Myronivskyi Khliboprodukt [MHPC LI, U/R], a vertically integrated company consisting of 20 enterprises, is one of the biggest companies in terms of land bank under lease.

The Open Joint-Stock Company ‘Ukrtelecom’ [UTEL UZ, U/R] has proposed that mobile network operators adhere to the new rates for accessing its fixed-line network.

According to the state wholesale electricity operator “Energorynok”, from November 10 through November 16, 2008, electricity consumption in Ukraine slumped 13.2% YoY, from 24.6 GW per week for this period in November 2007 to 21.4 GW per week in November 2008.

Difficulties in financing the needed investment into the Ukrainian electricity sector and the high level of depreciation of its assets are the key reasons behind Fitch’s negative outlook on the sector.

Ukrsotsbank [USCB UZ, U/R] has issued its report on the banks activities for the first nine months of 2008 in accordance with Ukrainian accounting standards. The bank increased its net assets by 24.1% in January-September 2008, establishing the value of net assets at UAH 38.753 bln (UAH 6.61 / USD 1).

The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has announced preliminary figures witnessing that the CA deficit grew to USD 1.9 bln in October as compared to USD 0.9 bln in September. Overall, the CA deficit reached USD 10.5 bln (negative 6.5% of GDP) in January-October 2008.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry plans to order 1,000 KrAZ trucks from the AvtoKrAZ holding company in 2009, according to an announcement by Serhii Kyrychenko, the General Chief of Staff for the Ukrainian armed forces, made during his recent visit to the plant.