OREANDA-NEWS.  February 17, 2012. The first meeting of the Plan Preparation Workgroup for Public Finance Management Reform has been conducted at the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine under the guidance of Anatoliy Miarkovskyi, First Deputy Minister.

The Workgroup has been composed within the framework of the dialogue of Ukrainian Government and the European Union on financial and economic and technical cooperation and based on prior understandings between the Parties.

The Meeting involved Ukrainian government authorities’ experts and officials of the European Commission and the World Bank.

In his opening speech Anatoliy Miarkovskyi, First Deputy Minister of Finance, emphasized the importance of cooperation in the area of bilateral and multilateral international cooperation’s crucial issues. To this end, key priority that has been defined was, before everything else, ensuring the most intensive level dialogue between Ukraine and the European Union.

At the meeting, Jose Roman Leon Lora, First Secretary and Second Division Manager of Assistance Programs “Sustainable Development: Economic/Trade and Territorial”, has supported the establishment of an advisory panel as this one, and said that draft plan would renew the active bilateral cooperation with the Ukrainian party within financial cooperation tools.

In turn, Svitlana Budahovska, senior economist of the World Bank Mission to Ukraine noted that the World Bank's public finance cooperation with the Government of Ukraine has a positive history, particularly within the project establishing the Treasury and "Modernization of Public Finance of Ukraine". Therefore, the World Bank’s recent research in the area of public finance of Ukraine PEFA has to be also used as a basis for further work.

Also the meeting has discussed further issues to be considered by the Workgroup and the issue of fixing the status of this advisory panel, the mechanism and algorithm, timing and results to be achieved.

The Workgroup will directly focus on public finance management, bringing the Ukrainian external audit system in line with international standards, VAT refund, facilitating public access budgeting information, development of the anti-corruption system, approximating the public procurement system to European standards, etc.