Arseniy Yatsenyuk: Entrepreneurs should be ready to supply products to the EU

The European market opens for Ukrainian goods in a month, and entrepreneurs should be ready to supply products to the EU. This was stressed by the Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk at a meeting with industrialists, entrepreneurs and employers on April 4, 2014

Arseniy Yatsenyuk recalled that the European Union has unilaterally decided to open its market for Ukrainian goods, "This window will be opened exactly in a month."

The Prime Minister addressed to representatives of the Ukrainian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (UUIE) to be ready to supply products to the EU: "Every day is money for the Ukrainian economy. Anything you can deliver under the Agreement, it should already be “on wheels”."

"The total amount of additional revenue into the economy – that is exactly what our company will earn starting from the date of opening of the European market until November - we estimate in the amount of 500 million euros. This is the money that we not only can, but must earn," he said.

"This is an opportunity which we must use and make money for our economy," said Yatsenyuk.

He applied to Minister of Economic Development and Trade Pavlo Sheremeta and Foreign Minister Andrii Deshchytsia to give specific instructions to all enterprises of Ukraine, who work with the European Union, what need to be done to deliver products to the EU in promptly manner.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk also said that he has held talks with the Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine on the volume of lending today. "We are aware that interest rates are very high," - he said and stressed that this is due to the high expectations of inflation, market volatility of Ukraine and the lack of actual foreign investment.

The Prime Minister called interest rate is unacceptable: if we take a 24% deposit and pay in the real economy 30%. "Any business in the world could not sustain such rates," he said.

"If we receive international financial assistance it will provide an opportunity to stabilize the foreign exchange rate, to create a real pillow of stability, attract additional private investors and change the interest rate," he said.

The Prime Minister also said that the loan programs were cut due to the outflow of deposits through military aggression of Russia.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk said that the Government and the NBU work out a mechanism to restart lending. He said that he would meet together with the NBU with representatives of big banks on the issue on April 7.

"I hope that after negotiations with the IMF for a month we will give specific tools that you will use to obtain additional credit resources at a rate that is lower than it is today," Arseniy Yatsenyuk addressed to the representatives of the UUIE.

He also touched the issue of government contracts: "We recognize that our enterprises concentrated in the East, will lose Russian orders."

"We urgently need to replace Russian customers by Ukrainian, what if heavy to do," the Prime Minister stressed.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk informed that UAH 25 billion of so-called state guarantees for investment projects have been laid in the State budget: "Such guarantees can go to update Ukrainian Railways, where the location is almost 100% when it comes about cars and tracks."

He noted that already had a conversation on this issue with the Minister of Infrastructure Maksym Burbak.