Economics Minister Bohdan Danylyshyn is forecasting stabilization of prices by July.
The Economics Ministry announced this, citing a statement by Danylyshyn.
"I want to stress that the government is today implementing a targeted policy, so that there will be price stability in Ukraine in 2-3 months and our citizens do not feel those price jumps that exist now," Danylyshyn said.
According to him, in the short term the Cabinet of Ministers will focus attention on preventing unjustified increases in the prices and tariffs of certain goods and services, including socially important ones, as well as on preventing unfair competition and abuse of monopolies.
"The actions of the government in the long-term period will be aimed at reducing the energy expenditures of the domestic economy and its dependence on the conduction on the world energy market, at developing financial instruments and the stock market necessary for efficient redistribution of temporarily free assets, at accelerating investment activity and modernizing the economy," Danylyshyn said.
Moreover, according to Danylyshyn, the Cabinet of Ministers intends to avoid excessive increase of the money supply, uphold the stability of the national currency, and prevent additional pressure on demand from budget expenditures.
"In particular, this will be achieved through preservation of the budget deficit at 1.2-1.5% of GDP; ensuring that budget expenditures do not exceed the planned amount, specifically 26.1% of GDP, and, in case of reception of unplanned revenues, they will be directed only toward reducing the budget deficit," Danylyshyn said.
He expressed the belief that it is necessary to analyze the justification for the tax breaks that result in reduction of budget revenues and evasion of taxes and prepare proposals on abolition of such tax breaks on the basis of such analysis.
In this context, he said that it would be important to transfer revenues from privatization of state enterprises into the Treasury Account with the National Bank of Ukraine if they exceed the amount of revenues approved in the state budget for 2008, with the aim of using money from the account to finance investment projects in the combining years.
According to Danylyshyn, the inflation rate in March was due to the influence of the accelerated increase if the prices of the foodstuffs that account for 52% of the food basket.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, President Viktor Yuschenko has forecast that the inflation rate will remain high in April.
The inflation rates in Ukraine were 3.8% in March 2008, 9.7% in the January-March period of 2008 (this exceeds the government's forecast of 9.6% for the entire 2008), and 16.6% in 2007.
Press conference with Situations Modeling Agency entitled "Earlier Kharkiv elections: possible consequences and prospects for participants of electoral process"
