Eleven organizations and associations ask for state committee for regulatory policy and entrepreneurship to be saved

Kyiv, January 24 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The heads of eleven nongovernmental organizations and business associations have signed an address to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych requesting that he reverse the liquidation of the state committee for regulatory policy and entrepreneurship and the transfer of its functions to the Economy and Trade Ministry.

"It would be difficult for the department in the Economy and Trade Ministry that would perform the functions of the committee to deregulate the business environment, as the department is subordinated to the ministry," the head of the Union of Ukrainian Crisis Managers, Pavlo Mikhailidi, said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Monday.

Viacheslav Bykovets, acting President of the Union of Entrepreneurs of Small, Medium and Privatized Enterprises of Ukraine, said he supported Mikhailidi.

"Actually, the regulator – the economy ministry – has been given the functions of a special commissioner," he said.

"We're absolutely indignant and we have to speak out on the issue," President of the Ukrainian Association of Business Incubators and Innovation Centers Natalia Kozhevina, said.

The authors of the letter and conference participants said that the liquidation of the body would narrow businesses' opportunities to contribute to the making of regulatory decisions by power bodies.

Along with the said organizations, those signing the letter included the heads of the Association of Pharmaceutical Workers in Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, the Ukrainian Federation of Security Professionals, the Association of Employers in Lviv region, the All-Ukrainian Association of Travel Agencies, the Pharmaceutical Association of Ukraine, the Union of Auditors of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Association of Carriers and the Chernihivschyna Chernihiv regional organization of businessmen and employers.