Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has said that Russia, the United States and China are priority countries for strategic partnerships.
“Ukraine is forming a system of strategic relations, given its course
for the modernization of the country in a modern globalized world.
Cooperation with Russia, the United States and China is acquiring
particular importance… At the same time, cooperation with each of our
strategic partners has its own specifics and priorities,” reads the
president’s annual address to the Verkhovna Rada, the text of which was
distributed in parliament on Tuesday.
Yanukovych said that Ukraine realized the importance of the further
development of constructive and equal relations with Russia, in
particular, taking into account the critical dependence of the Ukrainian
economy on Russian energy sources.
“The completion of a period of tensions in Ukrainian-Russian
relations has not solved the existing problems, although it created more
favorable conditions for constructive dialog and compromise,” he said.
Yanukovych said that the signing of a long-term comprehensive program
of economic cooperation for 2011-2020 was an undoubted achievement in
bilateral relations.
He said that the trade between Ukraine and Russia reached $50 billion in 2011.
“At the same time, one of the main obstacles to the further increase
in Ukrainian exports to Russia is the use of restrictive measures (first
and foremost, this concerns tariff and non-tariff barriers: quotas,
sanitary and veterinary standards, anti-dumping investigations, etc),”
reads the address.
He also stressed the need for “the constructive search for a mutually
acceptable regime of trade and economic relations between Ukraine and
the countries of the Customs Union, primarily Russia.”
