OTTAWA -- The Canadian government has announced a new package of aid to Ukraine worth more than 50 million Canadian dollars (about $38 million) to help the former Soviet republic move toward a market economy.


Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, on his first visit to a Western country since his July election, also Monday signed a friendship and cooperation agreement with Prime Minister Jean Chretien that he said would cement the "special relationship" between Canada and Ukraine.


Besides the cooperation and friendship agreement, Ukrainian and Canadian officials also signed agreements boosting political and economic relations. They included pacts on foreign investment protection, economic cooperation and military cooperation.


The aid deal includes balance of payments relief, technical assistance and credit extension.


Ukraine will find out Wednesday if it will receive a $700 million tranche of IMF aid after the republic's parliament passed an economic reform program last week.


Kuchma will cap his five-day trip at a special G-7 conference on aid to Ukraine, which was initiated by Canada in July at the G7 annual summit in Naples.


"We are probably the best country in the world to take advantage of the economic growth that will eventually come in Ukraine with the reforms proposed by President Kuchma," Chretien said.


"If 53 million Ukrainians can become consumers, they will buy a lot of goods from Canada."


Canada was the first Western country to recognise Ukrainian independence in 1991, and ethnic Ukrainians raised nearly $1 million to help buy a new embassy for Ukraine in Ottawa.


Kuchma on Monday also asked Canada for help in obtaining national security guarantees from nuclear powers as Kiev moves slowly and laboriously to join a major disarmament pact.


Chretien told a news conference that Kuchma had assured him Ukraine's parliament would pass legislation to join the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, under which Kiev would pledge to give up nuclear arms for good.


Canada is Ukraine's closest ally in the West, primarily because of a powerful lobby from the North American nation's million-strong ethnic Ukrainian community.