Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is reporting now to the parliament about the economic and social situation in the country, ForUm’s correposndent reports.In particular, the premier stated that she is worried about the situation in the banking sector. “The banking system lives now with collapsed hryvnia and without real money,” Tymoshenko said.
She believes that “with the present hryvnia-dollar rate” prices for import products will keep growing, which will aggravate the situaiton even more. “It will be very, very difficult,” the PM added.
According to her, interest rates are very high and don’t allow people to start business. Tymoshenko also announced that from the end of 2008, “Ukraine is going into recession.”
At the same time Tymoshenko hopes that Ukraine is a strong country and will fulfil the task, set by the government, namely the growth of GDP by 0.4 percent. She also added that the Cabinet will control the level of inflation.
The premier underliend that the budget for January had been fulfilled, and people got salaries and pensions. During her speech Tymoshenko called politicians to unite and to stop histeria on this question.
According to Tymoshenko, the government believes that it is able to protect the country from the world crisis now and in the future. At the same time, she noted that none of the countries is secure and the whole world is in the “risk zone.”
In addition, the premier informed that if the government is not sacked today, at the next session she will conduct some staff rotations. “We’ll try to make the government a government of associates,” Tymoshenko promised.
In her opinion, the government must be strong. She assured that even today the ministers do everything possible to protect the country from the crisis.
