[28.09.03]

President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma took part in the 58th session of the UN General Assembly from September 21 to 24. His address dealt with the issues of fighting AIDS in Ukraine (at present 57,000 of HIV-infected persons have been registered in Ukraine), eliminating Chernobyl disaster aftermath and Ukraine's participating in peacekeeping operations. He also had meetings with potential donors to international projects of fighting AIDS.

Leaders of the U.S. Jewish organizations promised their assistance to Kuchma in canceling the Jackson-Vanik amendment.

On September 23-25 speaker of Ukrainian parliament visited Washington. He met with U.S. Congress speaker Dennis Hastert and a number of other congressmen.

Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Lytvyn said that Ukraine's principal foreign-political task is integration in European-Atlantic structures, and at the first stage: accession to the World Trade Organization.

Chairman of the FATF ERG (the FATF European Review Group) Jean Pem officially proposed that Ukraine sends the Implementation Plan of Streamlining the System of Combating Money Laundering. This plan will be submitted early next week. It is believed that thereby an important step has been made to cross off Ukraine from the FATF "black list". Ukrainian vice premier Mykola Azarov said that Ukraine hopes to be crossed off this list by February 2004.

Ukrainian ambassador to Rumania Anton Buteiko resigned as a token of protest against the signing by Ukraine of the CES Agreement. The resignation was accepted (September 22).

One more draft Constitution (the 4th one) has been formed in parliament. As in the previous draft it deals with transition to the parliament-presidential republic. However, this draft proposes as early as in 2004 to cancel the election of the president by the people and to elect him by parliament.

As 4th draft was supported only by 160 lawmakers (the 3rd one was supported by 292), experts don’t think that the new draft has bright perspectives.

The statement of recently appointed U.S. ambassador John Herbst that Ukraine's accession to the Common Economic Space together with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan was not exactly in line with Ukrainian interests caused a negative reaction in Moscow and on the part of Ukrainian communists who assessed it as interference into Ukraine's internal affairs.

At the meeting of U.S. ambassador John Herbst with Ukraine's Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich (September 24) possibilities of Ukrainian companies' participation in Iraq's reconstruction were discussed. At the meeting of Herbst with Vice Premier Mykola Azarov the subject of discussion was, first of all, the disputes between Ukraine's government and foreign companies. Azarov said that the Ukrainian government intends by "the end of the year to put the end" in these disputes.

Ukraine's General Prosecutor's Office informed that the murder (July 2001) of journalist Ihor Aleksandrov had been solved and the arrested persons had been charged with murder. According to the prosecutors the murders had been members of the gang "the 17th precinct". Other details are not known.

About a year and a half ago they already announced about the solution of this murder, but the court then acquitted the accused Veredyuk.

Ministers of Interior of the CIS countries at a meeting in Dushanbe on September 23 signed the protocol "On counteracting human trafficking".

Ukraine has obtained the first positive result from joining the CES

On September 18 in Yalta representatives of Ukraine's Ministry of Economy and Russia's Ministry of Economic Development and Trade signed the Protocol to the agreement regulating deliveries of tubes from ferrous metals, which provided for the quota increase for large-diameter tubes manufactured in Ukraine and exported to Russia.

It is planned that export of Ukrainian tubes to Russia will be increased up to 740,000 tons (from the beginning of the year the quota was set at 620,000 tons). It gives Ukraine some additional US$90 million.

No doubt, it will be wrong to link this event only with the signing of the CES Agreement since a fundamental agreement on the increase of the export quota of Ukrainian tubes to Russia had been made earlier and its formal signing was timed for the meeting in Yalta. Russian manufacturers still are not able to meet the requirements of the main Russian consumer (Gazprom) in large-diameter tubes fully.

Nevertheless, the increase of the Ukrainian quota was related with a strong opposition from the influential Russian lobbyists, therefore experts justly believe that preparation for the signing of the CES Agreement played a positive role in resolving this issue.

In the event the CES formation is really conducive to reducing trade barriers in trade between Ukraine and Russia, especially in trade of metal products and energy the ephemeral CES Agreement will be filled with a real content. The increase of the Ukrainian quota for deliveries of large-diameter tubes indicates that a similar version for the development of the situation is not at all unreal as is claimed by the CES opponents. However, it is too early to make any serious conclusions.

The economic growth in Ukraine has gathered pace

The Ukrainian Government predicts that by the end of the current year the GDP growth will be 6.5%. The forecast upgrading is related to the fact that a serious decline in the GDP in July linked with a low harvest of grains gave place to a substantial GDP increase in August (by 5.9% compared with August of last year). Taking account of the traditional rise of production in autumn the government's prediction looks quite justified.