(RIA Novosti) - Energy and taxes will be among the key priorities of Ukraine's new government, a deputy prime minister said Monday.
Nikolai Azarov, who is also the finance minister in the Cabinet formed by Viktor Yanukovych, said, "We do not promise anything except one thing - to identify who is trying to fling our fuel and energy sector into a crisis - and we will do everything to bring it back to normal."
Azarov said the government would look into why national gas company Naftogaz, profitable as recently as six months ago, had now come to the brink of bankruptcy despite massive loans, reports Trend.
"We will establish by all means what kind of schemes the distribution of natural gas is based upon, who is cashing in on it now, and why the state loses energy resources," he said.
He also said the government was set to cut value-added tax and profit tax rates in 2008, as part of a taxation reform it would start working on this fall.
Yanukovych, the leader of the pro-Russia Party of Regions, formed the Cabinet Saturday, a day after parliament voted in favor of him as prime minister following President Viktor Yushchenko's approval, thereby ending a four-month political crisis.
Yushchenko approved the nomination of his 2004 presidential race rival on Thursday after he and the Yanukovych-led party's alliance with the Socialist Party and the Communists signed a national unity agreement on key policy areas and the pro-presidential Our Ukraine bloc joined to form a new "grand coalition."