KIEV, Jan. 18 - Ukraine reduced electricity exports 49.2% to 4 billion kilowatt hours in 2009, the Fuel and Energy Ministry told Interfax.

Electricity exports to Slovakia, Hungary and Romania fell a third to 2.579 billion kWh due to falling consumption and prices in Europe.

KIEV, Jan. 19 – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development boosted annual business volume by 32% in 2009, the EBRD's Ukraine resident office reported.

"Its annual business volume reached over $1.5 billion (EUR1.1 billion) thorough 46 transactions, the highest ever result for the Bank since it began operating in the country in 1993," the EBRD said in a report.

KIEV, Jan. 19 – The Ukrainian cabinet has approved a plan for the development of telecommunications in Ukraine until 2010, according to an announcement of the State Communications Administration.

KIEV, Jan. 19 – Hungary's System Consulting ZRt and Donetsk-based Skhidenergo Ltd. at the end of 2008 signed a contract on the supply of from 245 megawatts to 350 megawatts of electricity to Hungary.

KIEV, Jan. 17 - The wholesale market price of electricity, which the Energy Market State Company, the operator of the Ukrainian wholesale electricity market, sells to electricity supply companies, could grow by 21.4% in 2008, from 27.01 kopecks per kWh in December to 32.8 kopecks per kWh in January.

KIEV, Jan. 17 - Ukrainian companies have signed contracts to import about 2 million tons of coking coal from Canada and U.S., the head of coke industry association Ukrkoks, Anatoliy Starovoit said at a mining and metals industry meeting.

KIEV, Jan. 17 - Ukrainian steel mills are alarmed at the planned increase in railway tariffs for cargo shipments, which will yield additional costs of around UAH3.3 billion, Vasyl, Kharakhulakh, the director general of industry association Metallurgprom said at a meeting of representatives of mining and metallurgical companies in Dnipropetrovsk.

KIEV, Jan. 18 - Ukrainian steelmakers plan to produce 38.3 million tons of pig iron, 46 million tons of crude steel and 40.6 million tons of rolled products in 2008, the head of industry association Metallurgprom, Vasyl Kharakhulakh said at an industry meeting.

KIEV, Jan. 18 - Ukraine, jointly with the European Union, plans to raise 2.5 billion euros over the next five years to upgrade its oil and natural gas pipelines moving energy resources from Russia to Europe.

KIEV, Jan. 20 ??“ In 2005, the state foreign economic company UkrInterEnergo, an electricity exporter, is planning to maintain last year's level of electricity exports, a source at the company told Interfax-Ukraine.