President Viktor Yushchenko at a news conference in Kyiv made the Government and the National Bank leadership responsible for inflation in Ukraine.
"A key responsibility lies with the Government and National Bank. I warned even in January, that the Finance Ministry, Economics Ministry and the National Bank stake their life on the price and money stability," the Head of State stressed.
According to Viktor Yushchenko, quarter inflation at 9.7 percent has actually seized UAH 18 billion (USD 3.6 billion) from the Ukrainian citizens. The President, however, cast aside popular arguments on allegedly only "import" nature of the inflation, having demonstrated annual indicators of Russia (6 percent) and the EU countries (2.5 -3 percent). In fact, according to Yushchenko, 55 percent of Ukraine's inflation accounts for consumer goods basket, "while 90 percent is a domestic product". The President, as a professional financier, said that really imported production, what is more, is smoothed away by a strong hryvnia.
Analyzing the GDP growth in Q1 at 6 percent, President Yushchenko said the indicator under the current inflation, in fact, is actual reduction of the GDP growth as compared to the same period of previous years.
He named the Government's anti-inflation measures as "insufficient", as they cannot respond on the existing challenges. "Inflation - it is a test for power, first of all, for the Government. The developments, conventionally speaking, serve "a yellow card" for the Government," V. Yushchenko said.
Announcement of events
