UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT HOLDS HEARINGS ON ENERGY POLICIES... Deputy Premier Yuliya Tymoshenko said at the 15 June parliamentary hearings on energy policies that Ukraine needs $13 billion hryvni ($2.4 billion) this year to ensure the smooth functioning of the energy sector and survive through the coming winter, Interfax reported. She assured lawmakers that the government will manage to collect this sum as payment for electricity. According to Tymoshenko, the main reason for the current energy crisis in Ukraine, which experiences frequent blackouts, was last year's siphoning off of some 5 billion cubic meters of Russian transit gas. Owing to that move, Russia has stopped paying with gas for Russian supplies transiting Ukrainian territory. JM

EBRD TO INVEST $34 MILLION IN UKRAINIAN MOBILE PHONE COMPANY. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development announced on 15 June that it will invest $34 million in the Kyivstar GSM mobile phone company, AP and the "Eastern Economist Daily" reported. Kyivstar has 120,000 customers, or 29 percent of the mobile phone market in Ukraine. The bank said the investment is aimed at increasing competition in the country's private sector. Less than 1 percent of the Ukrainian population own mobile phones, compared with 8 percent in Poland, 12 percent in the Czech Republic, and an average of 30 percent in developed Western European countries, according to the EBRD. JM