Yushchenko decides not to veto social standards law

Yesterday during a visit to Western Ukraine, President Viktor Yushchenko said he would not veto the law passed by the Verkhovna Rada on October 20 that increased social standards. The laws raise the living wage from UAH 626 per month to UAH 701 and minimum wage from UAH 669 to UAH 744 as of November 1 and provide for hikes every quarter beginning January 1, 2010.  The bill was opposed by the Tymoshenko government, which maintains that it is impractical to raise social benefits during the crisis. Mykyta Mykhaylychenko: Implementation of the new social benefits would lead to further widening of the budget deficit, which we estimated at ~6.5% of GDP in 2009 and 4.7% in 2010. More importantly, the International Monetary Fund specifically called for a veto on this bill as a prerequisite for allocating the fourth loan tranche, USD 4 bln, to Ukraine.