PM believes a law on the natural gas mark should be adopted to ensure the power supply of both Ukraine and Europe

"To ensure the power supply of both Ukraine and Europe, this year we need to adopt a law on the natural gas market and, in particular, reform the entire system of tariffs, provide social minimum assistance from the State budget to all categories of people who need it," Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk said at a meeting of the National Council of Reforms on Monday, 2 February.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk has emphasized that the bill on the natural gas market has been developed by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine: "It's about bringing the whole energy sector of Ukraine in full compliance with the Third Energy Package. NJSC Naftogaz Ukrainy will be divided into three companies."

"We call on our Western partners to invest in the Ukrainian gas transportation system and Ukrainian gas storage facilities," the Prime Minister stressed.

He appealed to the MPs of Ukraine to carefully handle the bill.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk called the signing of a new program with the International Monetary Fund among the today’s tasks: "This task is within the competence of the Government, the Central Bank and the entire government as a whole."

The Prime Minister also recalled that last year Ukraine had received $9 billion financial assistance from foreign partners, and spent $14 billion on external liabilities, "This year we must pay off $11 billion of state-guaranteed debts, which we hadn’t run up. External state debt didn’t increased by any dollar during this year. State debt denominated in hryvnia has other indicators and this is due to the objective economic situation."

He has noted that despite the difficult situation Ukraine climbed up by 16 positions in the World Bank’s Doing Business rankings (Doing business in Ukraine) and is in the top 100, "Now Ukraine places the 96^th out of all countries according to the ease doing business. But it is far from really doing business easier."

For example, by simple procedure of connecting to power grids Ukraine occupies one of the last positions- the 185^th, "Because monopoly are dictating their rules. That is why competition policy in the country is one of the tasks," the Prime Minister said, stressing that the Government must "together with the president and the parliamentary coalition decide on the management of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine."

The Prime Minister called the implementation of the Agreement with the European Union in terms of visa liberalization among our tasks. He recalled that last year, despite the financial difficulty, the Government had purchased 606 terminals for issuing biometric passports.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk stressed that on February 4 the EU mission comes to Ukraine in order to analyze the implementation of the program on visa liberalization with the EU: "We expect that Ukraine will not just receive a positive signal, but the same visa-free legal regime for the Ukrainian citizens with the EU Member States, which is now for the European citizens in Ukraine."