KIEV, Nov. 8 -- Fitch Ratings has downgraded Ukraine's long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings to 'B-' from 'B'.

The outlooks on the long-term IDRs are negative, Fitch said.

KIEV, Nov. 11 – There is a threat to grain exports due to the refusal of the State Agriculture Inspectorate to issue certificates of grain quality without there being additional laboratory tests, according to the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club.

KIEV, Nov. 11 - Funds managed by U.S. company Franklin Templeton Investments as of the end of August this year held Ukraine's sovereign eurobonds with a total nominal value of nearly $5 billion, the Financial Times newspaper has reported.

LVIV, Nov. 8 - IDS Borjomi Group is facing an illegal seizure, Mykola Kmit, the group's advisor on strategy, has told Interfax-Ukraine.

"They're trying to seize our food holding, using a fake story about an alleged investment in us by Russian tycoon [Boris] Berezovsky. However, Myrhorodsky [mineral water bottling] plant was founded before Berezovsky was born, and the plant in Morshyn was a greenfield project, and no one has seen Berezovsky there.

KIEV, Nov. 8 - The Ukrainian government has decided to increase the minimum retail price of vodka by 15.3% and introduce this increase in two stages: the prices will go up by 9.2% in the next few days, and by another 5.6% from March 1, 2013.

KIEV, Nov. 8 – State-run enterprise LNG Terminal plans to raise a EUR 165 million loan against state guarantees to build a terminal for regasification in Odessa region, Vitaly Demyaniuk, the project's coordinator, told journalists in Kiev on Thursday.

KIEV, Nov. 9 – Spain's Enagas S.A. could act as the main investor in the construction of the terminal for liquefied gas re-gasification in Odessa region, project curator Vitaliy Demyaniuk told reporters in Kiev.

MOSCOW, Nov. 9 - Ukraine will see a reduction in the price it pays for Russian gas if it joins the Customs Union, Russian Foreign Ministry First Department of CIS Countries Director Mikhail Yevdokimov said at a Friday briefing in Moscow.

KIEV, Nov. 11 - Ukraine’s largest petrochemical company KarpatNaftoKhim, owned by Russian oil company Lukoil, Thursday launched in operation its newly built chlorine and caustic soda plant and polyvinyl-chloride (PVC) production facility.

KIEV, Nov. 11 - Russia is seeking to rent, or perhaps even to buy, some of Ukraine’s underground natural gas storage capacity, an official at the Ukrainian energy and fuel ministry said Thursday.