Default could have revitalized Ukrainian economy, says expert

Kyiv, December 27 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Default in Ukraine could have been an instrument for revitalizing of the country's economy, Chairman of the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting Ihor Burakovsky has said.

"Maybe we'd like not to speak about this at the expert and political level, but let's talk about default as an instrument for revitalizing the country's economy in the medium and long-term outlook," he said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday.

The expert said that the debt issue for Ukraine was first of all a political issue.

"If we really want to return debts, we should do something… One of the instruments could be the resumption of cooperation with the International Monetary Fund [IMF], [so] let's consider money, in this case the money of the IMF, as an instrument for the diversification of our debt problem," he said.

Burakovsky said that irrespective of whether Ukraine returns debts or not, today the debt has reached a level at which the debt problem should be the focal point of economic policy.

However, Ukraine is surviving a large-scale economic recession, he said.

"Even if next year we have the economic growth, the consequences of the recession won't be healed in one, two or three years," he said.