•The government is planning to allocate an additional $550 million for road maintenance operations in 2017, according to Ukrinform. Prime Minister Volodomyr Groysman thinks Ukraine's roads can realistically be restored to adequate condition in five to six years.

•French industrial conglomerate Saint-Gobain plans to invest $65 million to build two building materials plants in the Tlumach area of the Ivano-Frankivsk region, Novoe Vremya reported. The first factory is expected to be finished by the end of this year. The company expects that the project will create about 300 jobs.

•Turkish clothing retailer LC Waikiki will open 10 new stores in Ukraine, broadening its network in the country to 27 stores, Novoe Vremya reported. This year, the company plans to open in two Kyiv shopping centers, the Lavina Mall and New Way.

•Kyiv's Royal Grand Hotel will be put up for sale at an auction March 14, Interfax Ukraine reported. According to the report on the auction, one lot is nonresidential space of 96.4 square meters, nonresidential administrative premises of 1,295 square meters and the gas boiler and air conditioning area. The initial price of the lot will be $1.15 million.

•The central bank estimates that Ukraine had inflows of foreign investment in 2016 of $3.4 billion, including $1.1 billion in monetary investment, according to NBU Deputy Governor Dmytro Solohub, Unian reported.

•Scatec Solar, a Norwegian company has offered to build to solar energy plants in Ukraine, according to Novoe Vremya. The government is also considering the possibility of allowing the company to build such structures in other parts of Ukraine.

•The National Bank of Ukraine told Unian that if Sberbank of Russia accepts passports from the unrecognized Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, sanctions against the bank's subsidiary in Ukraine could be levied.

•Energoatom's plans to launch electricity exports to Poland and Hungary in 2019; the electricity will be generated by the second Khmelnitsky Nuclear Power Plant unit, which is now under construction, according to Unian.

•An African swine fever outbreak has been confirmed in the Mykolaiv region, the latest to be affected by the fast-spreading contagion, according to Interfax Ukraine.

For comments and news tips, please email UBJ AM editor David Edwards at david.edwards@theubj.com.