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| "Україна і світ сьогодні", №16-17 (234-235), April 26 – May 9, 2003 |
10 May 2003 |
| Is Common Euro-Asian currency unit necessary? |
Is common Euro-Asian currency unit necessary for Ukraine? The newspaper "Україна і світ сьогодні" (“Ukraine and world today”) asks the experts to comment such a proposal?
Oleh Soskin, Institute of Society Transformation, director, Ph.D. econ.:
Ukraine shouldn’t ally itself with the Russian Federation? Belarus and Kazakhstan in any unions of confederation kind. Having analyzed the turnover of goods between Ukraine and Russia we can find that the balance is positive. The last year it gave $2 bln.. The first quarter of this year shows the same tendencies.
Introduction of common currency unit with Russia could lead Ukraine to loss of independence. After all it can ruin national banking system, since Ukrainian banks will become useless with the shift to Russian currency. Branches of Russian banks will spread all over Ukraine. Moreover, we would have a lot of economic losses and development of economy and national bourgeoisie will stop. In fact Ukraine will work for the sake of Russian economy as Hryvna is more stable and valuable currency then Russian Rouble. Russian currency is not very stable, and it depends on such a risky factor as prices for raw materials (oil, gas, timber).
Having introduced common currency we will start to support Russian economy. In my opinion it will worsen well-being of Ukrainian people. So, all the approaches: geopolitical, geoeconomic and utilitarian show that introduction of common currency with Russia isn’t a reasonable step.
P.S. As some experts think, the idea of Euro-Asian Economic Space is useful for Ukraine just to lobby free-trade space within the CIS. We shouldn’t have deeper integration forms. So common Euro-Asian currency unit is not for Ukraine. |
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