The Government has been working systematically to address the effects of the economic slump caused by the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus and has embarked on developing several scenarios to find the way out.

This was stated by Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal during the first online meeting with representatives of the European Business Association and with the participation of the Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture Ihor Petrashko.

“Nobody in the world is capable of anticipating the future. Together with the business community, we are working on a strategy to overcome the consequences and to find the way out of the crisis. We have several scenarios. But it is too early to comment on those,” the Head of Government noted.

Moreover, the Prime Minister stressed that Ukraine has a high human resource capacity these days. These are people who used to work abroad and now have returned to their Homeland.

“The Government is working on a program to create fast jobs in various industries. Hundreds of thousands of people who have returned back to Ukraine and have high skills, work experience and corporate culture, are a good resource for reviving the economy. Businesses should try to attract manpower,” said Denys Shmyhal.

In addition, the Prime Minister emphasized that the Government had received positive messages from international financial institutions, in particular from the IMF and the World Bank.

"We will have good financial resource to get through this challenging time," said the Head of Government.

In turn, Executive Director of the European Business Association Anna Derevyanko thanked the Prime Minister for a constructive dialogue with business and expressed her hope that such meetings would be held on a regular basis.

“Today we have managed to tackle a number of issues pertaining to macroeconomic stability, energy, logistics, possible business support tools, and so on. After all, in such a difficult time for the country, it is critical to maintain communications and develop synergy of business with the authorities in order to understand whether the country is moving in the right direction and what else we can do to endure this crisis. So we look forward to the next discussion,” Anna Derevyanko summarized.

For his part, the Prime Minister stressed that the world of today is suffering from uncertainty and volatility. Denys Shmyhal assured that the Government will exert every effort to make it easy for businesses to get through the crisis.