On October 2, The Day's editorial office hosted Viktor Yushchenko,
Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine. A few hours earlier, President
Leonid Kuchma met with economic and financial experts to discuss the work
of the NBU and of the banking system in general; however, Viktor Yushchenko
was not invited to the meeting and learned about it only in our editorial
office.
What could this mean? Is the President looking for new horses to carry
the currency across the crisis that has undermined the financial system
of the country? Despite all the tricks played by the journalists who attended
the meeting, the NBU Governor avoided politics and carried on a purely
professional conversation, proving with concrete figures that Ukrainians
have every reason to trust the hryvnia and the country's banking system.
Apparently, those were the same trump cards that he put on the table during
the current difficult negotiations in Washington with the IMF and World
Bank. In a word, Yushchenko is trying to stand up for the hryvnia at all
levels and claims that there are all objective reasons to do so. The President,
strange as it may seem, is to some extent popularizing the opposite opinion,
while at the same time calling on people not to over-dramatize the situation
with the exchange rate, whose stabilization has been the only government
accomplishment since Ukraine became independent. Doesn't this approach
represent an attempt to remove a popular competitor? The meeting with Yushchenko
gave no final answer to this question, but it convinced the participants
that the hryvnia defenders, in spite of all criticism, have great potential
and that they are capable of restoring confidence in the nation's currency
both in Ukraine and abroad
See interview with Viktor Yushchenko on page Budget/Finance






