Macedonia and Ukraine have excellent political relations that should be accompanied by reinforced economic cooperation, said Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski after Meeting Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in Kiev Wednesday.

The Macedonian prime minister stressed that there were great possibilities for intensifying the economic cooperation, primarily by exporting Macedonian products to the Ukrainian market. In his view, there are also great opportunities for investments by Ukrainian firms in Macedonia, which would give an additional impetus to the economic cooperation.

The two officials discussed also the cooperation between Macedonia and Ukraine in the field of transport and energy, primarily through participation of Ukrainian firms in the construction of the gas pipeline system on Macedonian territory, as well as in the areas of the metallurgy and mechanical engineering. They discussed the experience of Macedonian building firms of working in Ukraine and the possibility of contracting them to work on building facilities for the next European football championship which Ukraine is hosting together with Poland in 2012.

President Yanukovych underlined that Ukraine was interested in cooperation with the countries of the Balkans, especially Macedonia. He also appealed for lifting of the visa regime between the two countries and said he would visit Macedonia during his Balkan tour in the middle of next year.

President Yanukovich said he was content with the Macedonian-Ukrainian cooperation in the international organizations, underlining that Ukraine recognized Macedonia under its constitutional name. He informed Prime Minister Gruevski about Ukraine’s relations with the EU and highlighted the Ukrainian position to Kosovo, emphasizing that Kiev, which did not recognize Kosovo’s independence, held that Kosovo should not be an example of how disputes could be resolved.

Prime Minister Gruevski met with his Ukrainian counterpart Mikola Azarov too.