President Leonid Kuchma initiates the appointment of Volodymyr Stelmakh to the post of head of the National Bank of Ukraine. This was reported by Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn during a conciliation council of leaders of parliamentary factions and groups, according to a proUA correspondent.

Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma signed a law on regulating the circulation of alcohol, alcoholic beverages and tobacco products.

The head of the NBU Council, Anatoliy Halchynsky, told journalists about this. "We recorded the inflation figure at the end of (2004) at 12%... This is more than forecast, but not critical," he said.

This Monday, at an operational meeting in the regional state administration, they were supposed to discuss the results of the implementation of budgets of all levels for 11 months of 2004 and the state of repayment of wage arrears in the region.

Dear Volyn residents! Dear fellow countrymen!

The state joint-stock company "Khlib Ukrainy" has stopped export grain shipments. A company representative explained this decision by the political instability in the country, reports "Ukrainian News.

Yesterday at the oil trading sessions in London and New York, world oil prices resumed the decline that began last week. Thus, on the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) in London, the quotes for January futures for the delivery of Brent crude oil plunged by $1.38 cents at once (to $38.27 per barrel).

In November, consumer prices rose by 1.6%. Accordingly, since the beginning of the year, inflation amounted to 9.5%, reports the State Statistics Committee. \n \nMost of all in November, vegetables became more expensive (by 13%), as well as milk and dairy products, eggs (by 7%).

The Head of the State Customs Service of Ukraine, Mykola Kalenskyi, signed an order according to which, with the aim of improving management skills and enhancing professional training, he sent to the central office of the SCS of Ukraine from December 6 to 30 the heads of the Rava-Ruska, Halytska and Yahodyn customs…

According to the results of work in November 2004, the growth rate of commercial product output at the Lutsk Automobile Plant was 108.1 percent. This was reported in the press center of JSC "LuAZ". \nIn November, 1980 VAZ cars rolled off the plant's assembly line, and since the beginning of the year - 19,687 units.