Ukraine and Canada hope to boost mutual goods turnover by signing a free trade area (FTA) agreement, Canadian International Trade Minister Ed Fast and Ukrainian Economic Development Minister Aivaras Abromavi?ius said at a joint press conference in Kyiv. “The trade with Canada does not exceed USD 200 Ml. This is a small amount for both Ukraine and Canada, which has a powerful, free economy.

However, the trade turnover can be expected to grow after the signature of a free trade agreement. Canadian investments in Ukraine have not been exceeding 1% since the early 1990’s, but signing the agreement will also expand the inflow of investment,” said Abromavi?ius. “Canadian investors are among most risk-tolerant in the world. Therefore the signal we’ll send to Canadian investors by this agreement will give us an additional inflow of investment,” the Ukrainian Minister added.

In turn, Fast pointed out that Canada has signed free trade agreements with 42 nations to date, and most of them were in difficult economic condition. “All the cases of signing such agreements (by Canada, - editor’s note) had positive outcomes for both parties,” Fast stated. As a reminder, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko expressed his hope in the fall of 2014 that the free trade area agreement would soon be signed with Canada.

UkrAgroConsult