UKRAINIAN TRADE DEFICIT COMPLICATES REFORMS.

Deputy prime minister Viktor Pynzenyk told the International Monetary Fund’s annual plenary meeting in Washington that Ukraine’s reform program needs greater support because of the country’s low currency reserves and its trade deficit, aggravated by recent Russian protectionist measures. Kiev hopes that the donor and creditor countries will, at the upcoming Paris meeting of the Consultative Group on Ukraine, decide to increase balance-of-payments-support loans to Ukraine and make an overdue start toward Ukraine’s admission to the World Trade Organization. (Interfax-Ukraine, October 4)

AZERBAIJAN-RUSSIA RAILWAY REOPENED.