He also informed Teixeira that he had instructed to invigorate talks with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank on infrastructure and investment projects.
         “Our government will spend loans on development, rather than on consumption and the coverage of the [budget] deficit,” he said. “We’re abiding by liberal economic values, and thus we realize that Ukraine’s open market-oriented economy should be competitive. Therefore, there is no other way for our state but to modernize and reform.”
          In his words, the Cabinet of Ministers has already prepared a number of interesting projects that foresee financial support from the side of international financial organizations and the involvement of investors. Road building is among the projects.
          Azarov noted that Ukraine should raise at least $15-20 billion to implement infrastructure projects.
Ukraine’s gas transportation system annually supplies about 75 billion cubic meters of natural gas to domestic consumers and 110-120 billion cubic meters to consumers in 19 European states.
         Preliminary agreements between Ukraine and the EBRD, the World Bank, the European Investment Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the European Commission were reached in spring and summer 2009 under which Ukraine could obtain $1.5-2 billion for the modernization of its gas transportation system. However, their implementation was postponed because Ukraine had been dragging out the reform of the gas sector.