Oleksiy Honcharuk
The sale of unprofitable state-owned enterprises, or the so-called "large-scale privatization," is one of the government's priority programs.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk says the government believes that state-owned strategically important enterprises should be sold wholly or partly, as the general condition of most of them is unsatisfactory, while the relevant strategy is ready for each such enterprise.
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"For people, the industry is a symbol of the country's development. But a huge part of the industrial sector has not been upgraded for the time being. Many companies used the [resources] deterioration model. Why? Because a huge share of industry is in state ownership. Each [appointed] CEO set own management, depleted [the resources], and they actually cut and pulled everything out, concluded unprofitable contracts, put them [the enterprises] into debt, etc. Therefore, a huge number of large state-run enterprises have been brought to a completely miserable and terrible state," he told the Ukrainian online newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda on February 10.
According to Honcharuk, industrial development is an important indicator of the country's economic growth for society, as this symbolizes the availability of jobs, wages and citizens' solvency. Therefore, the sale of unprofitable state-owned enterprises, or the so-called "large-scale privatization," is one of the government's priority programs since there is a request for it among Ukrainians.
The prime minister says gradual privatization is the only way to revive such enterprises. He also assured that the government has a clear strategy for each of the assets, in particular, for such important and controversial state-owned enterprises as Ukraine's power generating company Centrenergo, the national railway operator PJSC Ukrzaliznytsia, the country's largest chemical giant Odesa Portside Chemical Plant, etc.