Ukraine's economy under control, attractive to investors: PM

Ukraine has fulfilled all its obligations to creditors on time and on schedule, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Friday.

"There is a planned budget deficit of 7.5 percent of GDP (gross domestic product). This amount has been agreed with our international partners and creditors," Shmyhal said in an interview with news agency Ukrinform.

"It is relatively low compared to some European countries, where the budget deficit reaches even 10-14 percent. Our level of budget deficit is really approaching 300 billion hryvnias (about 10 billion U.S. dollars), but the figure is moderate for Ukraine and absolutely feasible for the budget," Shmyhal added.

Shmyhal further said Ukraine will use the tax revenues, dividends of state-owned enterprises and loans in the domestic and foreign financial markets to make up the budget and service the loans.

The official also pointed out that Ukraine is attractive to both domestic and foreign portfolio investors.

"Recently, we managed to sign an agreement on macro-financial assistance in Brussels in just one day and make a record placement of Eurobonds worth about 2 billion U.S. dollars at a rate of 7.25 percent per annum. This suggests that investors are still interested in investing in Ukraine," said Shmyhal.

According to the preliminary reports of the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, the country's GDP in the second quarter dropped by 11.4 percent year on year.

The National Bank of Ukraine expects a slowdown in GDP decline in the third quarter to 7.4 percent, and to 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter, in general predicting a decline in GDP by the end of this year at 6 percent.