Companies@UA: База компаний Украины

Kyiv, August 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine will pay off $1.5 billion of its foreign debt by the end of the year, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has said.

"We have already paid $0.5 billion of its foreign debt and will repay another $1.5 billion by the end of the year," she said on ICTV Channel on Thursday evening.

Taking into account new external borrowings, Ukraine's foreign debt has reached 20% of the GDP, which doesn't affect the country's economy much, the premier said.

"At present, all the countries are making borrowings as all the countries have budget deficit, our neighbor Russia, for instance, has a high budget deficit of 10% of the GDP," Tymoshenko said.

Raising loans allows private enterprises to develop their businesses and receive profit, the premier said adding that the state borrowings, in fact, have the same nature.

"Today everything has become cheaper in the world – construction materials, steel roll, and equipment. So it is currently expedient to build, modernize, reequip… Its high time, while everything is cheap, to modernize the country, to conduct all the necessary reforms at the expense of borrowings. And then we will be returning them without ruffle for 25 years. Our budget won't even feel it," Tymoshenko believes.