OREANDA-NEWS. September 20, 2013. The Government is aware of all possible risks that may arise after the signing of the Association Agreement/FTA with the EU. In this regard, the Cabinet of Ministers, together with local industrialists and entrepreneurs are working to minimize the impact of such risks on the domestic economy.

“Is there any risk in this way? Of course, there is, and we know them. Nobody says that the transformation primarily economic are simple. The Government has focused attention on the risks, because our goal along with local manufacturers and businesses to establish mechanisms of prevention and compensations for these risks in advance,” Mykola Azarov stressed.

According to him over five years, various compositions of the Government of Ukraine had difficult negotiations on the European future of our country. However, we had analyzed all aspects of the impact of free trade with the EU on Ukraine's economy. This is the third consecutive year that an action plan approved by the Government is being implemented to take advantage and minimize the risk of creating a free trade area with the EU.

The Head of the Government noted that the main risk is the risk that economic modernization requires enormous resources and time. “For example, to save the Ukrainian automotive industry, we have to hold radical modernization in advance and produce competitive products with a lower cost than European manufacturers in 3-5 years. And there are resource base, high power capacity, skilled workers, metal, electrical, plastic and rubber production in Ukraine for this. But we need decisively technological upgrading of the entire production chain, which ends with car assembly,” Mykola Azarov said.

PM stressed that all Ukrainian industry should perform a lot of work to implement European standards and technical regulations, fundraising and finding partners and investors to modernize production for a ten year of the transitional period.

“As a result of numerous discussions with representatives of industrialists, entrepreneurs, employers and trade unions, academic experts, the last such meeting, by the way, was held just last Monday, I commissioned to create chaired by the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Yuriy Boyko Interagency Working Group of the High Level involving MPs of Ukraine, representatives of employers, industry associations, industry trade unions to make constant analysis of our industries in terms of the free trade area and to develop joint proposals for the sustainable development of Ukrainian economy,” Mykola Azarov informed.

He said that already today the Government is considering the first proposal developed by the Ministry of Industrial Policy, Ministry of Agriculture and Food, Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.