OREANDA-NEWS. March 20, 2012. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov stressed there was no objective reason for Ukraine's rating decrease. He said this chatting with users of social network Facebook, he commented on the issue of reducing the international rating agency Standard&Poor's ratings of Ukraine from "stable" to "negative" based on the uncertainty of cooperation with the IMF and "Gazprom".

"The international rating agency put before the crisis in 2008 very high ratings to many financial institutions and countries that subsequently went bankrupt. Then began, in my view, reinsurance by the rating agencies, and now rating agencies lowered the estimates for countries like Austria, France, United Kingdom and virtually everyone, including Ukraine. There are no objective grounds for lowering the rating of Ukraine" - Mykola Azarov said.

He also argued that in January was a budget surplus. "We have a positive assessment of economic growth. The ratio of debt to the GDP ratio is reducing and is at much lower marks than most European countries", - said the Head of Government added that Ukraine is paid out consistently in all its external and internal obligations.

"As for the uncertainty of the work with the IMF and "Gazprom", then there is no ambiguity there. We have a cooperation program with the IMF, and there is an active contract with Gazprom, which we perform. Therefore, in my opinion, this is a subjective assessment, and by the way, I think separating almost all heads of governments who had to deal with the revision of such estimates. If you read the reaction of many leaders in Europe, you can easily see what I now say"- Mykola Azarov noted.