Ukraine is holding talks with the European Commission and the European Investment Bank to implement a broad program for granting loans and grants to small and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine in order to minimize the outflow of Ukrainians to work abroad, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has said.

"We are now working with the European Commission and the European Investment Bank that one of the important ways that the European Union can and should apply is a broad micro-credit and micro-grant program for small and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine. Only such business will effectively preserve jobs," Klimkin said in Kyiv on Monday at a press conference on the results of the activities of the Ukrainian diplomacy in 2017 and priorities for 2018.

He noted that there was currently a situation when not only the western regions of Ukraine, but also the southern and central regions are affected by the fact that Ukrainians leave for work abroad.

Klimkin also noted that the number of employed Ukrainians in Poland was almost a million people.