• Ukrainian workers send home $2 billion more each year than was thought, the central bank reports after refining its methods of calculating remittance figures. The new totals are: $9.3 billion in 2017, $7.5 billion in 2016, and $7 billion in 2015. This year’s figure also is to top $9 billion, Dmitry Sologub, deputy head of the National Bank of Ukraine, told reporters Wednesday.

• Ukrainians now flock to Poland to work, but shun Russia, the historical magnet, new central bank figures show. Last year, remittances from from Poland totaled $3.1 billion, a 57% jump over 2016. By contrast, remittances from Russia fell by 6% to $1.3 billion, less than half the Polish level. Beyond Poland, remittances from other EU countries grew by 14% last year to $2.6 billion. Remittances from U.S. and Canada increased by 17% to $800 million. Last month, the central bank estimated that 2.2 million Ukrainians are working abroad -- 8 percent of the working population.

• Ukraine’s economy grew by 2.5% last year, the State Statistics Service reports. This is better than the provisional estimate of 2.2%, and slightly better that the final growth rate for 2016 – 2.4%. In 2018, the IMF and the National Bank predict Ukraine's economy will grow by 3.2%. The World Bank forecast is 3.5%.

• Mohammad Zahoor is selling the Kyiv Post to Adnan Kivan, an Odesa businessman and native of Syria, for “much higher than $3.5 million,” Zahoor told the newspaper Wednesday night. In 2009, Zahoor, a native of Pakistan, bought the newspaper for $1.1 million. Over the following decade, he says he invested $5 million in its operations. According to Forbes Ukraine, Kivan’s construction company, Kadorr Group, is worth around $1 billion, largely in Odesa apartment buildings. He also has a growing media group: Channel 7 TV in Odesa, a TV studio in Kyiv, and a news site -- Ukrainian Information Service. The Kyiv Post sale is to close April 1. Two candidates have been interviewed for the job of chief editor.

• Ukraine formally scrapped on Wednesday its 2011-2020 economic cooperation program with Russia. Signed in the Yanukovych era, the pact was increasingly irrelevant after Russia’s trade sanctions against Ukraine. Prime Minister Groysman said Wednesday evening on TV channel Ukraine that he is “glad that Ukraine got rid of an artificial tie to the Russian economy." He added: “It was Russia that made absolutely unacceptable steps in military aggression, economic aggression, trade aggression against Ukraine. We were forced to reorient our economy to completely different markets.”

• Nearly $100 billion has been lost in Ukraine's economy since Russia's 2014 occupation of Crimea and aggression in the Donbas, according to a new report by Anders Aslund, Swedish economist and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington. Titled “Kremlin Aggression in Russia: The Price Tag,” the 20-page report notes that the Donbas was the source of 10% of Ukraine's GDP, and Crimea - 3.7%.On Crimea, he writes the biggest monetary losses were 18 gas fields in the Black Sea, with a total value of $40 billion.

• Ukraine has returned to foreign trade levels seen before Russia’s 2014 attacks on Ukraine, according to Natalia Mykolska, Ukraine’s chief trade negotiator. In three years, the EU has replaced Russia as Ukraine’s top trading partner, accounting last year for 40.4% of trade. Bolstered by a new free trade pact, EU-Ukraine trade increased by 26.7% last year.

• Kyiv tightens control over travel by Russians to Ukraine, under a decree signed Wednesday by President Poroshenko. Russians now are to notify Ukrainian authorities in advance about their reason for traveling here. In January, Ukraine introduced biometric controls for Russians entering the country, but stopped short of imposing a visa regime. According to Ukraine’s state border service, Russians made 1.5 million trips to Ukraine last year.

• Capital investment in farming grew 31% in hryvnia last year, more than twice as fast as the 13.7% inflation rate. In dollar terms, the $2.2 billion in investments was 4% higher than 2013, the last pre-crisis year, according to the Institute of Agrarian Economics.

• Metinvest, Ukraine’s largest private company, increased capital investments by 45% last year over 2016, compared to $542 million. According to audited financial results for 2017, the metallurgical segment accounted for 51% of capital investments, and mining for 48%.

• Ferrexpo plc, which controls Poltava and Yeristovskiy iron ore mining and processing enterprises, doubled its capital investments last year to $103 million, from $ 48 million in 2016. As reported in the company's annual report on the London Stock Exchange, the group has resumed its modernization program. This is to cost $120 million and last through 2020.

• Ukraine plans to spend $2 billion a year over the next five years to connect all 24 regional capitals with international standard roads and highways, Slavomir Nowak, head of Ukravtodor, said Wednesday at government briefing. By the end of 2022, 20,000 km of roads are to be repaired or rebuilt. Calculating that every $1 invested in road development generates $2.5 in GDP, he said the five-year program could add almost $30 billion to the nation’s GDP.

• To boost Ukraine’s wine industry, reeling from the loss of Crimean vineyards, the Rada passed on Tuesday a law to simplify and streamline permitting procedures to open new wineries and to launch new wines on the market.

• Part of a larger fruit and vegetable export surge, Ukraine exported 25% more tomato juice last year, than in 2016, according to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy. Ukraine exported 6,300 tons of tomato juice, earning $2.5 million. Last year, fresh fruit and berry exports were up 37%.

• Discount airline Yanair will branch out of its traditional Zhulyany hub this summer, starting flights from Kharkiv and Lviv to Batumi, and from Odessa to Krakow.

• Ryanair is to sign an airport agreement with Boryspil on Friday, clearing the way for flights later this year. The Dublin-based discount airline is to hold a press conference at Terminal F, the terminal that opened in 2010 to serve discount airlines. The signing comes after a formula was negotiated to lower airport fees for all airlines and to encourage new flights.

• Referring to Ryanair’s pullout last July, Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan told UBJ.am: “There was tremendous resistance from inside the country. Not everybody was pleased to have cheapest and biggest aviation company come to Ukraine.” A travel website, fly4free, posts what they say is the list of new Ryanair routes from Kyiv Boryspil to: London Stansted, Stockholm Skavsta, Vilnius, Wroclaw, Barcelona, Warsaw Modlin, Gdansk, Krakow, Poznan and Bratislava. From Lviv, the website says, there will be flights to: London Stansted, Warsaw Modlin, Memmingen, Dusseldorf Weeze and Krakow.

UBJ am. is reported by UBJ Editor in Chief James Brooke, a former New York Times foreign correspondent and Bloomberg Moscow bureau chief. For comments and story tips, Brooke is reachable at james.brooke@theubj.com

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