UKRAINE - UCRANIA

His Excellency Petro P. Ovciarenco, Minister for Social Security of Ukraine

Speaking on behalf of the President of Ukraine, Leonid Kutchma, and of the Prime Minister, Pavlo Lasarenko, I bring cordial greetings to all of you at this meeting and best wishes to all participants on this historic occasion and the peoples you represent for peace, food and prosperity in the years to come.

It is symbolic that this Summit should be held in the very year which has been declared by the United Nations as the year of struggle against poverty.

I represent here a relatively young state which, nevertheless, has a history going back a thousand years and which was one of the founders of the United Nations Organization. At the same time, our state gained its full independence and entered into the Community of Nations only five years ago. The Ukrainian Constitution adopted this year specifies that Ukraine is a democratic state under the rule of law, with a social market economy, and is dedicated to the pursuit of peaceful foreign policy.

As you all know, Ukraine has, of its own free will, destroyed immense nuclear stocks inherited from the former Soviet Union. Unfortunately, the Ukraine has also suffered a catastrophe which went all round the world, the catastrophe of Chernobyl. Considerable resources from the national budget are spent every year to steer clear of the after-effects of that catastrophe. I feel it is my civic duty to thank you all on behalf of the President and the people of Ukraine, all the countries of the world, first of all the Governments of the G-7, and especially the Government of Italy for its hospitality in hosting this Summit, and for the support that you have all given us to overcome this global catastrophe.

Ukraine has great agricultural potential and we are developing a Ukraine policy in this complicated period of transition in order to achieve, in the near future, the volume of agricultural output which is commensurate with our possibilities so as to increase our export potential.

In this connection, our main strategic task for the near future is to ensure that all Ukrainian people have the necessary food supplies, in particular the citizens who need social support, and also to contribute to the international strategic struggle against poverty in order to help countries and regions of the world which are suffering from food deficits.

During this period of transition of our social market economy, the agrarian and industrial sectors of the Ukraine are the most stable part of the economy. This determines nowadays to a considerable extent, not only the economic status but also the political status of our country. The agrarian and industrial sector of Ukraine is the one in which considerable material and manpower resources are concentrated: about 40 percent of gross output, and about one-third of the national income is produced there and about 70 percent of retail consumer goods are produced. About 4 million people in the Ukraine work in agriculture. The total area of the country is about 70 million hectares, which includes 41 million hectares of arable land.

It should be noted that the President of the Ukraine and the Ukrainian Government have adopted the initiative to regain the former status of Ukraine as the "granary of Europe", and active economic reforms in agriculture and other branches of the economy are being carried out for this purpose. A new economic system is being developed which is to reorganize radically the situation in agriculture, including privatization of the land and the creation of new forms of property and management.

Bearing in mind not only the needs of today but also of the future, Ukraine adopted some months ago a National Programme for the development of agriculture and for the renewal of the countryside for the years 1996-2005. This programme has been assumed as a basis for the activity of the new Ukrainian Government. Not only Ukrainian but also foreign banks and businessmen are showing an interest in it.

These market transformations must increase the output of meat by 1.6, food grains by 1.5, sugar and milk by 1.3 and oil by 1.1 in the period contemplated under the programme. Ukrainian and foreign experts consider that this is practicable. It goes without saying that such progress can only be made if considerable financial resources are available and our young state is short of such resources.

To reform the agrarian and industrial sector of the Ukraine a number of measures have been worked out:

· Firstly, to carry-on with the reform of land and property patterns in accordance with the Constitution of the Ukraine and to develop market infrastructure;

· Secondly, to ensure that we have the best possible structure of arable lands and that we can carry out a transition from unprofitable use of land and resources to a management based on resources and energy economy;

· Thirdly, to re-equip food and processing industries with highly productive machinery so that we can use to the full the agricultural and fish raw materials to develop their processing and thus make our foodstuffs more competitive in all the world markets;

· Fourthly, we want to create conditions to improve the material and technical basis of the agrarian and industrial sector;

· Finally, the State must help Ukrainian producers by giving them support in the State budget, in supporting priority production and ensuring that foreign credits including loans from the World Bank are used for reconstruction of the agricultural sector and related activities.

We cordially invite our foreign partners to come in and engage in mutually beneficial cooperation, and we ask all those interested to take part in the implementation of our programme and thus do good business by providing food to the population of the world, which is increasing continuously as we all know.