Ukraine scraps economic cooperation program with Russia

KIEV, March 21 (Xinhua) -- The Ukrainian government said Wednesday that it has scrapped the 2011-2020 economic cooperation program between Ukraine and Russia.

The measure was taken in response to Moscow's restrictions against Kiev, including the suspension of a Russia-Ukraine free trade agreement, said a statement on the Ukrainian government website.

Moscow has not commented yet.

Signed in 2011, the economic cooperation program between Ukraine and Russia was a roadmap for the development of the economic partnership between the two countries.

The program has listed several areas as the priority of bilateral cooperation, including energy, aeronautics and astronautics, ship building, and agriculture.

Ukraine and Russia have taken a series of restrictive measures against each other after Ukraine entered into a free trade zone with the European Union (EU) in 2016.

Moscow then suspended a Russia-Ukraine free trade agreement, fearing that the Ukraine-EU trade deal would result in a massive re-export of European goods into the Russian market without import duties.

In response, Kiev canceled preferential import duties on a range of Russian goods and imposed an import ban on some Russia-made products.

Despite the restrictive measures, Russia was Ukraine's largest trade partner last year, with bilateral trade amounting to 11.1 billion U.S. dollars. Enditem