Ukrainian billionaire Oleksandr Yaroslavskyi said the new president needs to create favorable and equal conditions for business to spur the economy, which is now in deep recession.
Ukrainians will choose a new president in a runoff election on Feb. 7. Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko and opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych are competing for the post.
Yaroslavskyi, who is the owner of DCH Holding, which includes chemical, banking, real-estate businesses, is worth an estimated $1.67 billion, according to Polish newspaper Wprost. He was speaking in a phone interview from Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine.
“I am expecting a positive development for Ukraine’s economy. The most important thing is to create equal conditions, equal laws for all businessmen. We need to remove all scandals and set up favorable conditions for business.
“Ukraine has great potential, it is a huge agriculture country. We can produce food as there will always be a need for it. Also chemical production is also very promising as the European Union tries to avoid unclean production.
“Ukraine is a transit country, it is located between Russia and the European Union. We have to use our strategic
location”.
On Ukraine’s real-estate, chemical, banking industries and crisis management: “I do not expect the construction industry to revive any time soon. I have bought some land but have not started building yet. We will rather wait until the sector recovers”.
“We see our income from the chemical industry to jump three times this year. We are producing 1 million tons of ammonia per year, we have not cut any production. Seventy percent of our chemical production is exported.
“We have sold a stake in our Ukrsibbank to BNP Paribas. I am not going to change my stake there.
“I was prepared for the crisis. I have not expanded my production, have not taken any loans.
On Euro-2012
“The Euro-2012 will bring only positive things for us. We are constructing stadiums, airports, roads. After we won the right to host the Euro-2012, the European partners are talking to us, we have got another level of business relations with them.
“I have invested 1.2 billion hryvnia ($149.5 million) in preparations for the Euro-2012 so far. We plan to invest 800 million hryvnia more to reconstruct the Kharkiv airport, hotels, roads.
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