OREANDA-NEWS. December 01, 2014. The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine hosted a solemn ceremony of signing the Agreement on financing of the sector policy support program Support to the regional policy of Ukraine.

From the Ukrainian side the document was signed by the acting Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine - Trade Representative Valerii Pyatnytsky and from the EU - Johannes Hahn, Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations.

It should be noted that signing of the Agreement shall afford to draw the EU assistance worth € 55 million (with € 50 million – as the funds of sector budget support and € 5 million – as a technical assistance). The aid will be directed to: improvement of normative - legal framework of the regional policy; stable and predictable funding for regional development; strengthening of the financial independence of local authorities; introduction of an effective system of monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of execution of the regional policy; strengthening of the competitiveness of Ukrainian regions; improvement of the economic, social and territorial cohesion of the regions.

The Agreement is planned to implement until 2020. The funds of the sector budget support will be transferred to the state budget in tranches (the first is expected in 2015).