KIEV, Dec. 23 – Parliament widened the deficit of Ukraine's 2013 state budget and the ceiling of this year's state debt by UAH 19.4 billion to UAH 69.98 billion and UAH 502.48 billion respectively.

KIEV, Dec. 21 - Hyundai Company has offered its apologies to Ukrainian passengers for discomfort during the use of South Korean high-speed trains and the company has started working on the elimination of malfunctions, which, first of all, are linked to bad weather, the Ukrainian Infrastructure Ministry has reported, referring to a letter of the company sent to Ukrzaliznytsia and Ukrainian High-Speed Railway Company.

KIEV, Dec. 21 – Ukraine's biggest mining and metallurgy group, Metinvest, has decided to mothball the sinter plant at its Azovstal steel mill and move production to the sinter plant of the Illich iron & steel mill, said Metinvest Holding CEO Ihor Syry.

KIEV, Dec. 21 – Ukraine’s economy will fall 1.3% this quarter, before growing 2-2.5% next year, mainly thanks to growth in industry and agriculture, Dragon Capital CEO Tomas Fiala said.

KIEV, Dec. 21 – Ukraine's gross foreign debt in January-September 2012 grew by 4.9%, or $6.21 billion, to $132.446 billion, which was 75.3% of GDP, according to the National Bank of Ukraine.

KIEV, Dec. 21 – The World Bank's Board of Executive Directors on December 20 approved a $10 million Additional Financing loan for the Development of the State Statistics System for Monitoring the Social and Economic Transformation Project (DEVSTAT) in Ukraine.

KIEV, Dec. 21 – Monetary gold in Ukraine's international reserves rose by 25.5% January through November 2012, to 1.13 million troy ounces, the National Bank of Ukraine said.

KIEV, Dec. 21 - Shell has asked Ukraine to include a potential tight gas deposit in the Donetsk-Dnepr basin on the list of deposits that will be tendered for development under production-sharing agreements.

KIEV, Dec. 23 – The prolongation of the export duty for transactions with scrap nonferrous metal is not in line with some requirements of the World Trade Organization and could lead to counter measures that could be taken by WTO members, according to a lawyer of Volkov and Partners law firm, Tetiana Kheruvimova.

KIEV, Dec. 23 – The law on public private partnership that took effect and the creation of a council of foreign investors at the parliamentary committee for industrial and regulatory policies and entrepreneurship would help increase the interest of foreign investors in Ukraine, according to the committee head, Natalia Korolevska.