Presidential aide on likelihood of gas tariff hikes; Ferrexpo dispute batted back to Ukraine; liquidity, UAH steady

Economics: Top aide to president Yanokovych: Gas tariff rise at year-end likely
Yesterday, a story by Bloomberg quoted Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Iryna Akimova, who is in charge of economics issues, as saying that Ukraine\'s authorities would start pushing up the natural gas tariff charged to household consumers at year-end, immediately following the elections. While speaking to the media in Washington on this issue, she referred to it as \"a serious issue\". Ms Akimova is the second high-ranking official of Ukraine who has dared to make a similar statement on the issue over the past few days; the first was Valeriy Khoroshkovsky, a parliamentary leader of the Party of Regions. However, this view is not widely shared among the ruling incumbent parties. A day after Mr Khoroshkovky made his statement, he rebuked it as a solution that was too hasty for the issue. Instead, he said that the government should focus on raising social standards. So, there is a fair chance that today, or in the next few days, the ruling Party of Regions, which is soon to start campaigning for parliamentary elections, will bury Ms Akimova\'s suggestion. However still, Ms Akimova\'s suggestion, on top of Mr Khoroshkovsky\'s statement, may indicate that in some offices of power, a grand plan on increasing the natural gas tariff for households while calming social objections to it is being developed.

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