Public joint-stock company Ukrtelecom saw UAH 244 million of net profit in 2016, and this is almost 50% down on 2015, Ukrtelecom Director General Yuriy Kurmaz said at a press conference in Kyiv on Friday.

He said that net revenue of the operator shrank by 2%, to UAH 6.636 billion.

"The company significantly increased depreciation payments due to revaluation of the company's fixed assets, whose value increased by UAH 4.85 billion. If the size of fixed assets would have remained at the level of 2015, we would have observed net profit of about UAH 700 million," he said.

Earnings before taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) over the period fell by 5%, to UAH 1.765 million and EBITDA margin – by 1 percentage point, to 26.6%.

Capital investment more than quadrupled, reaching UAH 954.4 million.

In particular, the company is implementing a large-scale project for the technical modernization of its network in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Zaporizhia, Lviv, and Dnipro.

Kurmaz noted the company plans in 2017 to increase the ratio of capital investment to UAH 3 billion.

Ukrtelecom is the largest fixed communications operator in Ukraine and promotes 3G mobile communications.