Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko pledged on Tuesday to proceed with major market reforms and speed up privatisation to stimulate growth next year of up to 7 percent of gross domestic product.
"We would like to mark 2006 with a series of concrete structural reforms," the liberal president told a conference attended by foreign investors. "We all understand that without change Ukraine cannot move forward and that goes for both the economic and social sectors. There are no barriers that cannot be overcome. Our aim is to conduct a sucessful policy in a European manner." Yushchenko, pledged to moving ex-Soviet Ukraine into Europe's mainstream, took office early this year on a wave of protests against election fraud.
But his first nine months in office have been marked by a slowdown in growth to its lowest level in five years. He sacked popular Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, with whom he had clashed over privatisation and state regulation of the economy. Her replacement, Yuri Yekhanurov, has vowed to right the economy and contain inflation as liberals, their ratings hit by the dismissal, gear up for a parliamentary election next March.
The president told investors he hoped to achieve growth of 5 to 7 percent of GDP next year compared to an expected figure of 4-4.5 percent in 2005.