OREANDA-NEWS. March 26, 2013. Ukraine and Japan are interested to continue cooperation under green investment scheme (GIS). This was stressed during a meeting of Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov with Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Japan to Ukraine Toichi Sakata.

“Ukraine has made prepayments in compliance with the agreement, so we rely on understanding and will be grateful to the Government of Japan for the opportunity and readiness to continue cooperation by means of including changes into the base agreement,” Mykola Azarov told.

He reminded in 2009 Ukraine and Japan had signed the arrangement for transfer of Assigned Amount Unit and became one among first world countries who started cooperation in this area. “By the moment of signing the two-way agreement there was no experience of introducing external economic mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol in the global practice,” the head of Ukrainian Government accentuated. 

Moreover, Mykola Azarov assured the Japanese party that the joint action plan on realization of projects under GIS signed by the sides on March 21, 2013 would be implemented by Ukraine.

He informed, thus far 392 energy saving projects and 6 large-scale projects are realized in Ukraine’s institutions of social sphere.

According to Mykola Azarov, the mentioned projects are of great social significance for Ukrainians, as it leads to real economy of energy resources, that are necessary for heating of healthcare and educational institutions, which is especially important under conditions of expensive imported gas.

In his turn, Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Japan to Ukraine Toichi Sakata thanked to Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov, Minister of Environment and Natural Resources Oleh Proskuryakov and head of the National Environmental Investment Agency Vladyslav Yakubovskyi for the achieved results in the mentioned direction of cooperation.

He accentuated that not only the Government of Japan but representatives of Japanese business circles are vigilantly monitoring the results of this cooperation: “In this connection we can confirm that successful realization of green investment projects will be a powerful impetus for further development of two-way relations both in the area of economics and in foreign trade”.

Toichi Sakata also expressed assurance that cooperation between Japan and Ukraine in the area of GIS will not only make a huge contribution into improvement of social infrastructure of Ukraine and welfare of Ukrainian citizens, but will become a tremendous incentive for penetrating Japanese advanced technologies into energy saving and environment areas.