OREANDA-NEWS. July 09, 2010. Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov spoke out for the need to reorient domestic enterprises towards import substitute production. The Head of the Government said this today at a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

"This is the matter of security balance. I want to emphasize that the import substitution should be a cornerstone for any sectoral and regional development programmes that we can introduce under "financial umbrella" of the IMF funds", the Prime Minister stressed.

According to him, now we must rely on own resources and develop the domestic production. "We can not live a day-to-day existence, import meat and meat products by 0.5 billion dollars more than export, coal - by 0.5 billion more, polymers and plastics - by 2 billion and etc. Do you understand what have we come to? We are importing not high-tech products, not new technologies but raw materials and goods with a low degree of processing. Continuing this way means for our economy to be second-rate", said the PM.