Arseniy Yatsenyuk forecasts economy to grow by 2% in 2016

Among core areas of investment into Ukraine for the German business are viewed transport infrastructure, agricultural sector, power industry and energy efficiency. Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced in 10 minutes programme on Sunday, October 25, speaking about outcomes of the recent Ukrainian-German economic forum in Berlin.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk stressed that in the past 18 months the Government's program of reforms had been aimed primarily to ensure fiscal and financial stabilization: "Onerous debts, billions in spending to serve them, unprecedented sums in expenses for national security and defense. It was vital to find extra funds to improve wages and pensions. It was necessary to finance social, health and education areas.

So, our first package of economic transformations was aimed directly at stabilizing the economic situation. And this is the basis of our programme with international creditors."

Now, he stressed, we should think about economic upswing: "We predict that in 2016 the Ukrainian economy will boost by 2%".

The Prime Minister reminded that on 1 January 2016 an Agreement on free trade area between Ukraine and the European Union was due to come in force: "This will be a strong impetus for the Ukrainian economy to become competitive and for the foreign investments to come into Ukraine".

Arseniy Yatsenyuk noted that on October 23, along with Federal Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel they opened the first conference in history of between Ukraine and Germany gathering business representatives of the two states: "Over the past year and a half the German business hasn’t left Ukraine, and, on the contrary, is willing to further invest in the Ukrainian economy".

According to the Head of the Government, German entrepreneurs say that Ukraine "has done a lot”: “But much more should be done to ensure flow of German investments into Ukraine and as a result opening new businesses, creating new jobs and bringing new technologies".

The key area of German investments in the Ukrainian economy, Arseniy Yatsenyuk underlined, - is primarily the transport infrastructure. He informed that the Government had already started negotiations with Germany’s Siemens for updating the rolling stock of Ukrainian railways and performing their modernization.