KIEV, May 30 – Ukraine's currency, the hryvnia, will fall 10-15% against the dollar by the end of next year, Moody's Investors Service forecasts.

"Despite the fact that the hryvnia starting from 2009 has remained stable, given the pressures of the current account [the deficit of the current operations account], we are expecting the hryvnia rate to decline by 10-15% in the forecast period (12-18 months)," reads a review by Moody's on Ukraine's banking system.

KIEV, May 31 – Zhytomyr District Administrative Court on May 29 canceled a decision of Zhytomyr Regional Council No. 801 of April 9 on a ban on extracting titanium and ilmenite ores on Zlobytske field by the state-owned Nadra Ukrayiny, the all-Ukrainian nationalistic association Freedom reported.

KIEV, May 31 – Azovstal Steel Works (Mariupol, Donetsk region), part of Metinvest Group, is continuing to actively tackle energy saving issues at the enterprise, and has created a working group jointly with scientists and experts to consider energy-saving projects, Azovstal Director General Enver Tskitishvili has said on one of the television channels of Mariupol.

KIEV, May 31 - Ukreximbank, as planned, in the near future will decide on the possibility of launching 15 investment projects in the industrial sector, which are part of the State Economic Stimulation Program for 2013-2014 prepared by the government, according to the first deputy head of the State Agency for State Corporate Rights and Property Management, Oleksandr Kalenkov.

FRANKFURT, June 1 - The banking systems in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine appear to be slowly but surely recovering from the worst of the financial and economic crisis of 2009-2010, Standard & Poor's said in a report on Wednesday.

KIEV, June 1 - Mykolaiv Alumina Refinery, which is 100% controlled by Russia's Rusal, has signed a protocol of intent with Kharkiv-based Ukrdicement research institute to draw up technical specifications for the use of by-products of alumina production – red mud – in various economic sectors.

KIEV, June 2 – The largest private vertically integrated energy holding DTEK plans to start building the Botiyeve wind power plant (Zaporizhia region) at the end of summer of 2011, Senior Manager for Business Development at DTEK, Vasyl Bohdanov, said at the second European-Ukrainian Energy Day in Kiev on Wednesday.

KIEV, June 2 – The State Property Fund has proposed to sell state-owned stakes in regional energy supply companies Kyivenergo, Donetskoblenergo, Zakarpattiaoblenergo, Chernivtsioblenergo and Vinnytsiaoblenergo first of all, a source in the government has told Interfax-Ukraine.

KIEV, June 2 - Naftogaz Ukrayiny is in talks with Statoil ASA of Norway seeking joint exploration and extraction of hydrocarbons on Black Sea shelf and also tapping shale gas deposits, the Ukrainian company reported Thursday.

KIEV, May 31 - A tender to sell a 92.79% stake in OJSC Ukrtelecom should be announced in August to provide revenues from privatization for the 2010 national budget, said Oleksandr Riabchenko, head of the State Property Fund.