• In time for Christmas shopping, Lavina Mall, Ukraine's largest shopping center and adjoining amusement park opened Dec. 1 in Kyiv, on Academician Paladin Avenue, west of Syrets Metro station on the Green line. At buildout, this new Megaline mall will have over 500 stores and 3,500 parking spaces.

• Telecom titan VimpelCom is to open a worldwide service center in Lviv, a report on Liga.net stated. Employees at the office are going to handle business processes in the Eurasian market.

• Ukraine's balance of payments surplus in the January-October period was five times greater than it was in the same period in 2015, Unian reported.

• Ukraine's industrial output grew 15 percent from January through October, Ukrinform reported.

• The number of Ukrainians in self-employment has risen by 41,000 in the past six months, Ekonomicheskaya Pravda reported using figures from OpenDataBot. The number of IT specialists keeps growing. In April alone, Ukraine registered 10,161 programmers. The most popular business for the self-employed are wholesale and retail trade, transportation, and computer programming.

• Ukraine's GDP grew 1.2 percent in the first 10 months of 2016, multiple sources reported.

• Prime Minister Volodomyr Groysman said the Cabinet wants to give a three-year tax break on equipment imports, according to Ekonomicheskaya Pravda. He said organs of state control, especially the tax and customs services, should work for the good of business, rather than being business obstacles.

• Poland's LOT Airlines will add a daily Warsaw-Kyiv Zhulyani flight to its existing two flights a day Warsaw-Kyiv Borispyl, multiple sources reported. Ukrainian carrier UM Air will introduce service from Kyiv Zhulyani to Teheran, Beirut and Amman.

• The Ukrainian exchange is temporarily simplifying access to the market for new clients, Ekonomicheskaya Pravda reported. The head of the exchange, Oleg Tkachenko, said a decision last week by the National Bank of Ukraine allows for trading of fixed-term contracts.

• The European Union consumed nearly one third of Ukraine's ag export production in 2016, according to Ukrinform. The five largest consumers of Ukrainian agricultural and food products are EU countries, accounting for a 28.3 percent share. Other leading consumers are: India, Egypt, China and Turkey.

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