Ukrainian trade with CIS countries in the framework of the agreement on a free trade zone will increase by 30-35%, or up to 92-96 billion dollars a year.

This opinion was expressed on Tuesday by the government commissioner for cooperation with CIS, Valeriy Muntiyan, during the Moscow-Kyiv videoconference on a new format of cooperation within the Commonwealth of Independent States.

"The result of mathematical economic modeling showed that, if the agreement works (on FTZ with CIS - Ed.), and it is already in force, under the optimistic scenario, the increase in turnover (of Ukraine with the CIS countries - Ed.) will be 30-35%, that is 92-96 billion dollars a year," he said.

At the same time, according to Muntiyan, beside the volume of trade, other most important issues in trade and economic activity are the pattern of trade, the level of added value and the degree of processing.

As Muntiyan put it, the agreement on FTZ with the CIS is fully built on the principles and norms of the World Trade Organization. According to him, mathematical economic modeling shows how Ukraine can get a specific economic effect from implementation of this agreement. According to him, Ukraine's GDP will increase by 2.5% (optimistic forecast), the revenue of the state budget will increase by 9.4 billion UAH, and, in addition, 166 thousand new jobs will be created.

In 2011, Ukraine's trade turnover with CIS countries reached 71 billion dollars.


 

Ukrinform