The winners of a nationwide program 'Person of the Year 2012' will be announced on March 23, the program's CEO Arkadiy Raitsyn has reported.

The academic council of the program has already chosen 48 candidates in 16 categories, as well as eight winners of international and special prizes, Raitsyn reported at the press conference hosted by Interfax-Ukraine agency on Wednesday.

In the category of "Regional Leader of the Year 2012," the head of Zaporizhia regional state administration, Oleksandr Peklushenko; the head of Luhansk regional state administration, Volodymyr Prystiuk; and the head of Poltava regional state administration, Oleksandr Udovychenko, are the candidates. While mayors of Simferopol Viktor Aheyev, Zhytomyr Volodymyr Deboy, Kharkiv Hennadiy Kernes are the candidates in the category of "City Head of the Year."

In the category of "E-media Journalist of the Year", journalist of 1+1 TV Channel Yulia Borysko, journalist of TRK Ukraine Andriy Danylevych and journalist of Inter TV channel Anastasia Dauhule are contenders for the prize.

Moreover, people's artist Ani Lorak, leading Ukrainian painter Oksana Mas and film director Myroslav Slaboshpytsky are the candidates for the victory in the category of "Artist of the Year."

The international prizes in the culture and art sectors will be presented to Russian people's artist Vladimir Kuzmin and merited Russian artist Arkadiy Ukupnik. In the diplomacy sphere Ambassador of Poland to Ukraine Henryk Litwin will be granted a prize, while a prize for "a remarkable contribution to international journalism and selfless service to the ideals of the profession" will be presented to TV journalist and publicist Vladimir Pozner. The prize "For the revival of cultural contacts and spiritual rapprochement of peoples" will be presented to the popular Italian singer Toto Cutugno.

This year for the first time a special international prize to the member of the academic council of Mikhail Voronin program was founded, and called "For an elevated style of life," and was conferred to Vasyl Lanovy.

This is the 17th year the nationwide "Person of the Year" awards have been held.