OREANDA-NEWS. July 26, 2012. The gap between the living conditions of peasants and urban residents needs to be addressed - the Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov said at a session of the Government.

“It's no secret that the state of rural infrastructure in times worse than in cities. Striking gap makes people especially young people leave a village” – Mykola Azarov noted.

As the Prime Minister stressed, that there were paradoxes in a rural area which are contrary to common sense: on the one hand, unemployment, on the other - a shortage of workers.

“We must eliminate this nonsense. The agricultural sector is growing rapidly. It is an attractive area for investment” – Mykola Azarov noted. Thus he added that the requirement of the Government to invest in agriculture is to create jobs and raise incomes of those working on the field.

And for its part the Government will support this investment both by tax policies and improving social infrastructure, by the increasing of the comfort of life in the countryside, assured the Prime Minister.

According to him, 20 major projects with a total investment of more than 8.5 billion UAH is being implemented in the agricultural sector at the same time as a result of these projects will be created only 7 thousand new jobs: " That is, for every million UAH of investments performing less than one workplace. In my opinion, it is wrong".

“I commend the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, the Ministry of Social Policy to hold consultations with representatives of agribusiness, scientists, public associations for the prospects of the labor market in the agricultural sector of the economy and social development in rural areas” – Mykola Azarov said.
He noted that agriculture needs modernization, the introduction of new technologies for growing, processing and storage, logistics and so on. "Agricultural policy needs skilled manpower and better working conditions. And we have to resolve these issues" - the Prime Minister declared.