WARSAW, Oct. 19 - Polish listed real-estate developer Globe Trade Center and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development will jointly invest $100 million in office and retail property investments in Ukraine through new Ukrainian subsidiary GTC Real Estate Investments Ukraine B.V., GTC said in a statement Thursday.

KIEV, Oct. 19 ??“ The Soyuz-Victan group of companies, one of CIS's major alcohol producers, plans to launch the first stage of a new alcohol plant in Lytkarino, Russia, in Q2 2007.

MOSCOW, Oct. 19 - Fitch Ratings announced it has assigned HSBC Bank plc's upcoming issue of limited recourse loan participation notes a B- long-term rating.

KIEV, Oct. 20 ??“ The National Electricity Regulatory Commission voted Thursday to cut effective Nov. the price of natural gas for many household consumers by reducing the maximum wholesale price of natural gas for households not using gas for heating by 18% to UAH339 per thousand cubic meters, Interfax-Ukraine reported.

KIEV, Oct. 20 - One option for the extension of the Odessa-Brody pipeline to Plock in Poland might be to set up a transnational consortium, the Ukrainian Fuel and Energy Ministry quoted UkrTransNafta Deputy CEO Ihor Horobets as saying at the Oil Terminal 2006 conference in Moscow.

KYIV, Sept 20 – Epicenter K LLC is looking for investments to implement the second stage of the project to build solar power plants (SPPs) at its facilities with a total capacity of 75 MW by the end of 2025.

KYIV, Sept 20 – The United Nations is working to purchase more large-scale energy equipment for Ukraine. Through the UNDP, over 6 million Ukrainians have gained stable access to electricity, said Shoko Noda, Assistant Secretary-General of the UN and Director of the UNDP Crisis Bureau.

KYIV, Sept 20 – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) believes that raising the bank profit tax from 25% to 50% in 2024 is unlikely to be effective and suggests the government consider raising broader taxes such as value-added tax (VAT), excise taxes, or environmental taxes, as outlined in the National Revenue Strategy (NRS).

KYIV, Sept 21 – As a result of a Russian missile attack on September 21, the PepsiCo plant in the town of Vishneve, Kyiv region, was damaged. Due to a fire that started after a missile strike, a dairy warehouse and part of the production premises were partially destroyed, the Kyiv-Info Telegram channel said.

KYIV, Sept 22 - According to the results of the first half of the year, the insurance market of Ukraine lost almost a third of its business, or 28% in premiums and 32% in insurance payments throughout the market, Yulia Khrystoliubska, the deputy head of the department for supervision of insurance companies of the National Bank of Ukraine, said at a meeting with insurance market participants on Thursday.