Sweden believes in the economic success of Ukraine

The two-day conference, " a deep and comprehensive free trade area of the future: how the EU can contribute to the development and prosperity in the Eastern Partnership countries" began its work in Kiev.

Conference was organized by the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics and Kiev School of Economics with the support of the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The conference is timed to the process of establishing a deep and comprehensive free trade area (DCFTA) between the EU and Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova, the correspondent of Turan of the Ukrainian capital.

Ukraine has never been so closer to the agreement. Even last year, Kiev initialed the agreement, but it was torn down in December after the failure of the government of Yanukovych to sign an association agreement with the EU, and in particular the agreement DCFTA.

Newly elected President, Peter Poroshenko already announced soon deferred signing agreements immediately after taking office. Sweden's ambassador to Ukraine Martin Hagström believes in successful economic integration of Ukraine into the EU. Speaking Wednesday at a conference, he made four optimistic forecast of Ukrainian economic outlook.

"Firstly, free trade will open for Ukraine a market with a population of 500 million people, which includes six major world economies, he said.

- Secondly,  investment inflow  in the Ukrainian economy will strengthen, and third, as the experience of the transformation of Eastern Europe, will ensure rapid growth of Ukrainian GDP and fourth, it will strengthen the Ukrainian business, which already exports 25 % of its production in the EU."  He also noted that if the Ukrainian economy since the early 90s has increased by 40 % , then the economy of Latvia by 340%.

His optimism Hagstrom substantiated by the report that the Swedish- Ukrainian business forum with participation of 25 large companies of Sweden and government representatives  will be held in Kiev on June 5.

He also noted that Sweden is among the top ten countries in terms of investment in Ukraine , which at the end of 2012 amounted to 1.7 billion dollars.

The conference also noted that the implementation of DCFTA will strengthen mutual trade by removing trade barriers and implementation of European norms and standards.

President of the  Kiev Economy School George Logush noted that the integration of the economies of Ukraine and other countries of the Eastern Partnership with the EU internal market will contribute to their rapid development.

The conference was attended by representatives of the expert community and the governments of the Eastern Partnership , including Azerbaijan. -0-