The Presidential Secretariat has criticized the anti-inflationary policies of the Cabinet of Ministers and the National Bank of Ukraine.

Oleksandr Shlapak, the Presidential Secretariat's first deputy head, announced this to journalists.

"I cannot treat with approval the statements that the National Bank and the Finance Ministry are making regarding fiscal implementation of the budget. Concentration of colossal resources in the government's budget accounts and non-infusion of significant funds into the economy through the NBU system have resulted in a financial hunger," Shlapak said.

He stressed that that practically 85% of agricultural enterprises' applications for bank loans have been rejected because of a shortage of funds among Ukrainian financial institutions.

"Because banks have no resources. If they have, then at extremely high cists. Credit rates are higher than 30% today," he said.

He added that manufacturers would reflect these high interest rates on credit in the prices of their products in the future, thus resulting in a further increase in the rate of inflation.

"The producer price index was almost 20% in the first four months and over 30% in annual terms. In six months, this inflation will turn into consumer inflation," he said.

He called on the government to seriously debate the inflation issue with the aim of drafting an optimum decision aimed at restraining inflation.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, consumer prices rose by 3.1% in April 2008.

The inflation rate in the January-April period was 13.1%.