KYIV, July 20 - Since the launch of the land market on July 1 and as of the morning of July 19, some 1,107 land transactions have been carried out in Ukraine for agricultural plots with a total area of 1,530 hectares, the leaders in terms of the number of contracts concluded are Poltava and Kharkiv regions, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food said on its website.

BAKU, July 20 - SOCAR, State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic, plans to send a new batch of Azerbaijani oil to Belarus at the end of July.

"We are planning to send a batch of oil to Belarus from the Georgian port of Supsa on July 30-31," Deputy Head of the public relations and events department at SOCAR Ibrahim Ahmadov said.

He said that the volume of this batch will be about 650,000 barrels.

KIEV, July 19 - The Cabinet of Ministers at a meeting on Wednesday approved a financial plan of national joint-stock company Naftogaz Ukrayiny for 2017 with expected net profit of UAH 21.781 billion, which is 17.9% less than in 2016 (UAH 26.529 billion).

KIEV, July 19 - The integration of power grids of Ukraine and of the continental Europe ENTSO-E will help to make domestic power prices lower, Vsevolod Kovalchuk, the head of Ukrenergo, said.

KIEV, July 19 - The Cabinet of Ministers has authorized the Ministry of Finance to prolong the agreement with the European Investment Bank (EIB) on attracting EUR 200 million for financing the reconstruction of infrastructure destroyed during the military operations, as well as for resolving the problems of internally displaced persons.

KIEV, July 19 - Ukraine will accept $15 million of Turkish financial assistance to Ukraine in 2017-2021 after the government has approved an agreement with Turkey on military-financial cooperation, the government reported Wednesday.

KIEV, July 19 - Ukraine will seek to improve its international ease of doing business ranking to 70th up from 80th in 2018, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said.

KIEV, July 20 - The Ukrainian government has proposed to Parliament to increase excise duties for alcohol and tobacco products in 2017 by 11.2% as the annual indexation of the excise duties outlined in the Tax Code.

KIEV, July 20 - The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) as further liberalization of currency regulation has relaxed the terms and procedure for the purchase and transfer of foreign currency for some transactions, according to the central bank's website.

KIEV, July 20 - The Ukrainian government on Wednesday has supported creation of two state-owned conglomerates by merging severa; aerospace and parts companies, namely Arsenal-Modern Space Systems and Zirka-Technologies.