"Due to the vigorous efforts, the Government has managed to stabilize the economic and financial situation in Ukraine and to obtain non-monetary sources to accelerate an increase of social payments", stressed Minister of Finance of Ukraine Natalie Jaresko at a briefing at the Government House, commenting on the declared by the Prime Minister Government’s decision to submit to the Parliament a bill on increase of the social standards since September 1, instead of December 1 as had been previously planned.

According to her, improvement of social protection will affect 12 million Ukrainian citizens.

The Finance Minister noted that according to the recent data, there has been fixed reduction an inflation rate, slowing down of the economic slump, preserving stable exchange rate during six months, increasing the reserves of the National Bank and more optimistic indicators of implementation of the state and local budgets than expected. In addition, for the first time in last few years, the Government manages to fully and timely finance all planned public expenditures. She also assessed the successful cooperation with the IMF, which resulted into granting financial assistance to our country worth US $ 17.5 billion, of which the sum worth US $ 6.7 billion has already been received.

Natalie Jaresko stressed that the Government had pursued an austerity policy: "the Government is very economical and Thrifty in their spending and led an active fight against fraud in the tax area". According to her, the introduction of an electronic system of VAT administration in July has entailed reduction of fraud cases and additional revenues to the state budget worth UAH 2 billion.

Natalie Jaresko stressed that the Government had been pursuing an austerity policy: “The Government has been rather practical and thrifty in their spending and led an active fight against fraud in the tax area". According to her, the introduction of an electronic system of VAT administration in July has entailed the reduction of fraud cases and additional UAH 2 billion revenues to the budget.

In addition, according to the Minister, a landmark agreement with commercial creditors to restructure sovereign and sovereign guaranteed Eurobonds was reached, thus providing an opportunity to save US $ 8 billion or up to UAH 80 billion during the years to come.

"An additional resource, which the Government could get due to its conservative policy throughout the year, will be spent by us to accelerate payment of social benefits", stressed Natalie Jaresko.

At this, the Minister of Social Policy of Ukraine Pavlo Rozenko informed that on average all social standards in Ukraine would grow by about 13%.