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KIEV -- The Ukrainian government Thursday unveiled plans to free prices, liberalize exports and cut inflation to back President Leonid Kuchma's efforts to win Western support for his planned reforms.
"These are the first steps on the path to real economic reforms in Ukraine," Deputy Prime Minister Ihor Mityukov told a news conference.
The moves followed a decision on Wednesday to scrap an artificial official exchange rate for the karbovanets, the Ukrainian currency.
Mityukov welcomed Wednesday's decision by the International Monetary Fund to lend Ukraine about $371 million under its "Systemic Transformation Facility," a special fund designed to help countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union move to a market economy. IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus said the fund could provide Ukraine with as much as $1.5 billion over a 12-month period.
President Leonid Kuchma, elected in July, unveiled a radical market reform program earlier this month. He is in Canada now attending an international conference aimed at marshaling funds to carry it out.
Deputy Economics Minister Viktor Kalnyk added to Mityukov's statement that the government had decided to cut the volume of state-regulated retail prices by the end of the year to 65 percent of all prices from the current 80 percent.
He said beginning next year the cabinet aimed to free most prices, excluding those set for monopoly producers.
He said the cabinet had also decided to liberalize the Ukrainian export system.
Ukraine Reforms Ease Price, Export Controls
28 October 1994
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