OREANDA-NEWS. March 17, 2014. The Vice Prime Minister – Minister for Regional Development, Building and Housing and Communal Services Volodymyr Hroysman has held a meeting with the World Bank Country Director for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova Qimiao Fan.

The parties discussed further cooperation between Ukraine and the World Bank, in particular in the framework of realization of a series of joint projects in regional development area.

Notably, Volodymyr Hroysman informed his interlocutor on his principal tasks as Vice Prime Minister – Minister for Regional Development, Building and Housing and Communal Services, that include, first of all, maximal decentralizing the power in Ukraine and upgrade of the local self-government.

According to him, the Government has to pay huge efforts aimed at rebuild of relations with the international partners. Thus, cooperation with the International Monetary Fund has been resumed, the relations with the EU have acquired different character. “We are striving to build a modern democratic state, hence the support of the World Bank on this way is crucial for Ukraine,” Volodymyr Hroysman underlined. “The World Bank has done a lot for Ukraine. We highly appreciate your position. To our part we will do everything to make our relations maximally transparent and effective”.

In turn the Country Director for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova Qimiao Fan assured his Ukrainian colleague they maximally support Ukraine. He stressed the World Bank was ready to render financial, technical and expert assistance to our state.

At this, Qimiao Fan emphasized the World Bank had adopted a decision to allocate in the current year to Ukraine supplementary financial assistance to the tune of USD 3 billion that is to be directed to introducing reforms and significant economic projects.

“The sum of USD 3 billion is a serious resource. This sum exceeds sixfold the amount of financing rendered to Ukraine in the previous year. It is important that considerable part of the sum will be directed to the development and modernization of housing and communal economy, improvement of social services system for the population, healthcare services etc.,” he noted.

The parties agreed to stir up cooperation with removing maximally artificial bureaucratic barriers and simplifying the internal procedures on this way.