OREANDA-NEWS. July 19, 2010. Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov considers Ukraine should not force privatization of public facilities. He said this during a meeting with representatives of businessmen and diplomatic corps.

Mykola Azarov has noted that during his four month being in office as Prime Minister, he had never insisted on privatization to pump up the state budget. According to him, privatization should take place on condition that there is a favourable market situation and to modernize facilities that are privatized. "I do not insist on privatization, and for four months I have not initiated these issues. We did without this money, and I think that we will do without them. And we will agree privatization only when we have an opportunity to sell profitably and when we understand what for this privatization. I will absolutely support privatization, if we receive as a result of privatization radically new production, if investors allocate funds in modernization of production. And if we sell a company and then it will be destroyed, unfortunately, we can see this now - I am against such privatization", emphasized the Head of the Government, adding that the current government doesn’t consider privatization as revenue side of the budget.

Mykola Azarov has also said that the Government has not yet studied the situation on privatization of Odessa Portside Plant, but promised that the Cabinet of Ministers will return competitive deposit to those involved in privatization of OPP, illegally spent by the previous Government. "This debt, which we got from the previous Government - we will return", he said.