OREANDA-NEWS. September 28, 2011. Great Britain is an important strategic partner of Ukraine as in political as economic cooperation. This was started by Prime Minister Mykola Azarov at a meeting with a member of the British Parliament Jack Straw.

During talks the sides discussed an issue of Ukraine's integration to the UE; also they talked about deepening of economic cooperation, including trade and investment direction.

"We highly appreciate the relations of strategic partnership between our countries", - stressed the PM and added: "Political support for Ukraine from the UK including in the Euro area is very important for us".

According to Mykola Azarov euro integration is the main porpoise for the Government. The Prime Minister noted as a result the Government was interested in early approval of controversial issues concerning the FTA with the European Union, in particular, restrictions on Ukrainian agricultural products. "Ukraine is an important producer of grain, oil, sugar, because we are interested to negotiate with the European Union so that European markets were more open to us", - Mykola Azarov said, noting that removal of the quota principle is a very important position for Ukraine, because this year Ukraine can export 25 million tons of grain.

Thus, he noted that Ukraine and the UK had the potential to improve the results of trade and economic relations despite the fact that bilateral trade volume increased by 16% for 6 months of this year.