The Government of Ukraine submits to the Parliament the draft law on increase of social standards for almost 12 million Ukrainian citizens. This was stated by Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk in “10 minutes”.

He reminded that Ukraine together with external creditors agreed to “write off” 20% of commercial debt: “This amount is almost US$4 billion”.

In addition, the Government has managed to extend the payment period on government bonds by four years.

“We cut US$4 bn and extend the payment period on bonds, which we hadn’t taken, but we had to decide what to do, by four years. This gives Ukraine a further opportunity to make the safety cushion and to attract new investments to the state”, he said

In addition, the Head of Government stressed, the Government has done a lot to stabilize the financial and economic sector for 9 months: “for example, in August we managed to collect additionally almost UAH 2 billion of a value added tax due to the legalizing salaries and the fighting against corruption in the State Fiscal Service”.

Thanks to these steps, Arseniy Yatsenyuk emphasized, we have now the opportunity to increase social standards: “We together with the President have made the decision on necessity to increase social standards”.

The PM reminded that the current law provides for the growth of the minimum wage and the cost of living from December 1: “But we worked hard to find financial resources to increase the minimum wage and the cost of living, and, consequently, wages for the Ukrainians, since September 1. And the decision was made”.

According to him the total financial resource that had to be found to increase wages, pensions and allowances of other social standards was amounted to about 10 billion: “We found them”.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk informed that the Government submitted to the Parliament a bill which provides for the increase of social standards for the nearly 12 million Ukrainian citizens, including about 3 million state sector workers.

“This is the rare case when the Government cares not about raising political ratings, but about wage, pension and social standard increase. The Prime Minister and my party and the Government will not take part in the elections. We took full responsibility for the state of affairs in the country. And we will bear this responsibility”, he stressed.

“Our enemies and political opponents expected a default and collapse of Ukraine. This has not happened and will not happen. We know what to do - and we do”, Arseniy Yatsenyuk said.