Viktor Yanukovych noted that yesterday he had reported to the country on 100 days of his activities as the President. "Regaining confidence of the Ukrainian people in the government is very important," he said.
According to the President, there is a lot of work ahead, including adoption of a number of laws that would influence public life and development of the economy. It is also necessary to implement a number of projects of regional development, such as work to attract investment to every region of Ukraine.
"This year, during consideration of the budget, we had the initial deficit of about 12%. Then, we set ourselves the task to reduce the budget deficit so that it was below 6%. The final budget was adopted with a deficit of 5.6%! As for today, based on the dynamics that we see, we will approach the end of the year with a deficit no higher than it is provided by the budget," said President Yanukovych.
In addition, the President said, clear signs of recovery in the national economy are already observable now. In particular, growth figures are 4.8%, 12.6% and 30% for GDP, industrial production and exports respectively. The import growth is about 8%. The positive balance of foreign trade for the first time in recent years is $ 2 billion. All these figures suggest, said President Yanukovych, that Ukrainian economy is recovering.
"But we still have much to do for ordinary people to feel that," said Viktor Yanukovych, adding that first of all it applies to increasing wages.
The President separately focused on the subject of internal and external debts of Ukraine, which are now "enormous". "Currently, Ukraine performs its obligations. This year is very difficult for our country. But we deliberately initiated the beginning of reforms this year, because we could not wait longer. We are on the brink of disaster,” said Viktor Yanukovych.
He also spoke about the situation with the price of gas: "We managed to significantly reduce gas price in Ukraine. This reduction allowed boosting production, increasing incomes, improving the situation in housing and local budgets. All priority areas of life of the country were influenced by this reduction.”
Viktor Yanukovych said that he is optimistic about the future, though believes that 2010 will be remembered as one of the most difficult years in the history of our country due to the need to tackle the crisis in the economy. On the other hand, he said, 2011 will be the year of “actual beginning of system reforms”.
