KIEV, March 2 – Leading Ukrainian-based confectionery producer Kraft Foods Ukraine has acquired the premises of Pivnenkivske sugar refinery in the town of Trostianets (Sumy region) from Eurotrade Ltd.

KIEV, March 2 - Ukraine's steel industry reduced finished roll output 34% year-on-year in January-February to 4.016 million tons, the Industrial Policy Ministry told Interfax.

Crude steel production plummeted 38% to 4.44 million tons and pig iron fell 35% to 3.838 million tons.

KIEV, March 2 – Ukraine plans to double natural uranium concentrate production to 1,880 tons in 2013, which is 2.3 times the expected output in 2008 (around 820 tons).

KIEV, March 4 – Ukraine is planning to produce 50 fuel assemblies (FA) in 2013 under a special state economic program approved by the cabinet on Feb. 25.

According to the program, creating the FA production capacities will cost some UAH 3.59 billion.

KIEV, March 4 – Bad and overdue debts on credits of Kiev banks in 2008 grew 2.7 times, to UAH 6.369 billion, which is 35.4% of the total bad credits of the whole banking system.

The National Bank of Ukraine reported in a letter to banks that the share of bad credits in the credit portfolio of Kiev banks in 2008 grew by 0.68 percentage notches, to 1.73%.

KIEV, March 4 - Exports of goods from Ukraine in February grew compared to January by 2.2%, to $2.5 billion, while imports fell by 10%, to $2.8 billion.

KIEV, March 3 – Three women have made Focus magazine latest list of the "130 richest Ukrainians."

The magazine's editor, Mykhailo Hladky, said that "by means of this rating, we wanted to demonstrate how the country's economy was living last year."

MINSK, March 3 – Ukraine and Belarus have signed a contract aimed at creating the first nuclear power plant in Belarus, Belarusian First Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Semashko said in Minsk.

MOSCOW, March 4 - Naftogaz Ukrayiny, Ukraine's national energy provider, will be responsible for unsanctioned siphoning of gas belonging to RosUkrEnergo, Andrei Knutov, a spokesman for RosUkrEnergo, told Interfax.

KIEV, March 4 – Naftogaz Ukrayiny should raise the charge for the transit of natural gas across Ukraine at least threefold, to $5.1 per 1,000 cubic meters for a distance of hundred kilometers, according to Taras Stetskiv, a member of Parliament's committee on the fuel and energy complex, nuclear policy and nuclear security.