Ukrainian president: "We have got past" worst of economic crisis

Feb 15, 2011, 13:08 GMT

Kiev - Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Tuesday said the worst of the world financial crisis affecting his country was over, citing improving economic indicators for 2010.

'It (2010) was a year of tests and challenges,' Yanukovych said in a speech at an economic forum in the eastern city Kharkiv. 'But thanks to God we have got past now, and we have GDP growth of 14.5 per cent.'

The Ukrainian leader cited improving international sales in the country's key metals, chemical, and agricultural industries as the main engine for the growth.

Increased tax revenues have allowed a reduction of the budget deficit from 19 per cent to 5.5 per cent, he said.

A high pace of GDP growth in 2011 at some 16 per cent expansion could well be sustained, Yanukovych said.

'This figure is realistic, and it is what we are planning on,' he said.

Ukraine's economy was one of the hardest-hit in the world by the international financial crisis, having decreased in size between 30 and 40 per from 2007 through 2010, according to estimates.

Critics of the Yanukovych administration have singled out high inflation, low salaries, and widespread unemployment as continuing problems.