President Viktor Yuschenko has called on the Cabinet of Ministers to support the farming sector.

Ukrainian News learned this from a statement by the presidential press service.

In his letter to Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Viktor Yuschenko notes that the Cabinet of Ministers must urgently tackle a number of problems of the farming sector, the presidential press service said.

Yuschenko notes that the fall in the wholesale purchase prices of farming produce has not cut retail prices on consumer markets.

Also, President Yuschenko has called on the Cabinet of Ministers to pay attention to funding of the Agrarian Fund. He believes that the current funding of the Agrarian Fund is not enough, which indicates inadequate actions of the government.

According to Yuschenko, the state must play a more active role in foreign economic relations to create more favorable conditions for exports of Ukrainian goods through the reduction in export duties and reimbursement of VAT.

Also, President Viktor Yuschenko believes there are no positive changes in cattle breeding, as imports of meat affects the situation in the sector.

Yuschenko also advocates a number of measures to be drawn up by the government to prolong credits raised by farmers and to continue the state support of crediting in 2009.

President Viktor Yuschenko urges the Cabinet of Ministers to include all needs of the farming sector - more than UAH 15 billion, according to experts - in the draft national budget for 2009.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, President Yuschenko has assessed the governmental policies in the farming sector as untalented ones.

The Ministry of Agrarian Policy expects negative effective of the world financial crisis on processes of investment and crediting in the farming sector of Ukraine.