28 January 2013, 12:08
The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Volodymyr Rybak hopes for further intensification and extension of Ukrainian-Japanese cooperation in the economic sphere.
On Monday, during the meeting with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Ukraine Toichi Sakata, Volodymyr Rybak stressed that Japan is an important trade and economic partner of Ukraine, particularly in industrial, financial and agricultural spheres, as well as in energy efficient technologies and energy safety. He mentioned the increase of goods turnover between Ukraine and Japan in the past year despite some crisis phenomena in world economy that testify to great potential of bilateral cooperation in trade and economy.
“Considering the fact that the global food problem is becoming ever more topical, and taking into account high potential of Ukrainian agriculture, I am sure that Ukraine will become one of Japan’s main partners in this sphere,” said Volodymyr Rybak. “In this respect Ukraine hopes for substantial investments on the part of Japanese companies into Ukrainian agriculture, particularly in construction of elevators, export terminals, etc.”
In this context Volodymyr Rybak expressed his conviction that conclusion of the Agreement on Liberalization, Promotion and Mutual Protection of Investments, the draft of which is now being processed by both parties, will provide addition impetus for bilateral economic cooperation between our countries and become an important signal for Japanese business circles in regard t guarantees of protection of their investments in Ukraine.
According to him, Ukraine welcomes the interest of Japanese companies to participation in realization of energy saving projects, implementation of Japanese cutting-edge energy efficient technologies and alternative energy will facilitate modernization of Ukrainian industry, increase of energy safety level in Ukraine and environmental protection. For Ukraine, implementation of these projects is one of the priority spheres of cooperation with Japan, he added.
Volodymyr Rybak expressed his gratitude to the Japanese Government for cooperation within the program of “Official Development Assistance”, within the framework of which technical and grant assistance, privileged credits for large infrastructure projects are provided. He also thanked for striving to develop this cooperation.
He stressed that development and strengthening of bilateral cooperation in Fukushima – Chornobyl line plays an important role in relations between our two countries, and claimed that Ukraine highly appreciates the conclusion (upon the initiative of Japanese Members of the Parliament) of the Agreement between the Government of Ukraine and the Government of Japan on cooperation in the sphere of postaccident reaction to emergencies at nuclear power plants.
The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada said also that the Ukrainian side hopes for effective and successful second meeting of the Joint Japanese-Ukrainian Committee on Cooperation for Improvement of Postaccident Reaction to Emergencies at Nuclear Power Plants that is to be held in Kyiv in the second quarter of this year.
In his turn, Mr. Ambassador supported the necessity to accelerate signing of the Agreement on Liberalization, Promotion and Mutual Protection of Investments that would facilitate intensification of bilateral trade and economic and investment cooperation, particularly in such important spheres as energy efficiency and energy safety.