Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman stressed that the decision regarding the selection of a host city for the Eurovision song contest of 2017 had been made based on a competitive basis, taking into account the financial capacities and readiness of infrastructure.

The Head of Government said during his conversation with journalists at Shebelinkagasvydobuvannya Gas Production Division in the framework of the working visit to Kharkiv region on Friday.

"There is no reason to believe that this issue concerns political plane. This issue is not political, but an issue of music. Eurovision is a song contest where they sing but don’t do politics. But what is important that this competition is critical to the credibility of our country, so it should be held on a high organizational level", said Volodymyr Groysman, answering the question whether there was the political bias while taking a decision regarding the selection of the host city.

The Prime Minister stressed that he had supported a competitive selection process among cities-candidates for the Eurovision-2017 to be held.

The Head of Government noted that a lot of cities had taken part in the contest for the right to host "Eurovision". Approximately equal conditions were determined in Kyiv and Odessa, however, Kyiv had more financial resource and more developed infrastructure to host the event. In addition, Kyiv’s authorities pledged to fund the competition to the tune of not less than UAH 200 million, explained Volodymyr Groysman.

"It provided the possibility for Kyiv to win. If Odessa had offered more resources, I think the Organising Committee could have decided another way", he said.

In addition, at least UAH 1 billion is planned to spend on infrastructure development in Kyiv.

"This will mean that having the funds of the capital and Government’s support, we will be able to conduct this contest at a high level ", summed up the Prime Minister.