The Ukrainian authorities have been tasked with launching the mass production of biometric passports from January 1, 2015, Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Olena Zerkal has said.

She said at a press conference in Kyiv on Monday that four EU missions visited Ukraine in September to assess progress in this area: one on border control, another on document security, and two more on asylum and migration.

"I can confirm that we have rather positive results," she said.

"The only question is the failure to launch the mass production of biometric passports. This is a definite error, which we plan to correct in the near future... The task is to start issuing biometric passports from January 1, 2015," Zerkal said.

She said that meetings were currently being held to solve technical problems and issues related to financing.