OREANDA-NEWS. On April 09, 2009 The Premier of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko declared the Gov’t will contribute to the development of agricultural cooperatives in Ukraine. The Head of Government said at the meeting dedicated to the development of agricultural service cooperatives.

“The priority for 2009 is to do all the best service cooperatives to start their activity,” the Head of Government stressed.

Yulia Tymoshenko stressed all the countries around the world are developing agricultural cooperatives of any direction. In particular, according to the Prime Minister, in the European Union over 60% of agricultural production is realized through cooperatives. In Ukraine this showing is about 0% as villagers are isolated from markets.

The Head of Gov’t emphasized that today in Ukraine agricultural markets have transferred into supermarkets where the owners dictate their rules. “This is a real monopoly, in its complete form. It will not give an opportunity to receive additional funds to the villagers,” Yulia Tymoshenko stressed.

The Prime Minister underlined in Ukraine there exists huge variation between purchasing price in agricultural households and retail price on food markets. So, for instance, purchasing price of milk amounts UAH 1.40 per liter, while on food markets – over UAH 4, purchasing price of beef – UAH 11.7 per kilogram and UAH 35.7 on the markets, pork – UAH 17.2 per kilogram and UAH 39 respectively.

Yulia Tymoshenko emphasized through such variation in prices the households lose about UAH 27 bn annually. “This is a colossal amount of funds, not received by rural economies,” the Head of Government underlined.