KIEV, June 22 - Fitch Ratings has affirmed Metinvest B.V.'s (Metinvest) long-term foreign currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at 'B', its Long-term local currency IDR at 'B+', and national long-term rating at 'AA+(ukr)'.

KIEV, June 22 – Ukrainian Energy and Coal Industry Minister Yuriy Boyko and Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yildiz have discussed the possibility of exporting Ukrainian electric power.

KIEV, June 25 – The public council at the State Agency for Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving has said that an updated draft energy strategy of Ukraine for the period until 2030 drawn up by the Energy and Coal Industry Ministry is unacceptable.

KIEV, June 23 - Moody's Investors Service has downgraded Metinvest B.V.'s B1 corporate family rating to B2, its Aa3.ua national scale rating to A2.ua and Azovstal Capital's B2 bond rating to B3.

The outlook on all ratings is stable, reads a Moody’s statement.

KIEV, June 23 – Consumer confidence in Ukraine continues to improve, although the pace of its growth is gradual, according to a recent May monthly survey as a part of a joint project of GfK Ukraine Company and the International Center of Policy Studies (ICPS).

KIEV, June 23 – Ukrainian experts in June worsened their forecast for the expected fall in Ukraine's real GDP in 2009 to 12.8% in the light of the continued rapid drop in industrial production in Ukraine.

"While in March the real GDP fall was projected at 9%, in April it was at 10.2%, in May 11.3%, and in June the forecast is 12.8%," reads a macroeconomic consensus forecast from 14 companies and institutes published on June 22.

KIEV, June 24 - Lithuania's Mazeikiu nafta plans in 2008 to increase fuel supplies by 40% against 2007, to 360,000 tons, said Ihor Maistrenko, head of the company's representative office in Ukraine.

KIEV, June 24 – The commodity turnover of fast-food companies in Ukraine could grow to $2 billion in the next two or three years, according to Dmytro Pohrebitsky, the director general of Kiev-based FM Group Ltd., which owns a chain of restaurants and coffee houses in Ukraine.

KIEV, June 24 - Ukraine's grain harvest for 2008 will come to 40 million tons, 20 million of which tons will consist of wheat, Agricultural Policy Minister Yuriy Melnyk said on Tuesday.

KHARKIV, June 25 – Ukrainian businessman Oleksandr Yaroslavsky is to continue developing Kharkiv tractor plant jointly with one of the top businessmen in Russia, Oleg Deripaska.

"I have a joint project with Deripaska," Yaroslavsky told Interfax-Ukraine, while denying reports that he had withdrawn from Kharkiv tractor plant.