The policy of mountainous areas’ development in Ukraine has been ineffective in recent decades. This is noticeable in terms of economic, demographic indicators, accessibility of educational, medical, social, administrative services, state of infrastructure, rivers and forests in the Carpathians. In the recent years, we have begun to change approaches to stimulating the development of territories –from now on, implementation of specific development projects, and not just payment of salaries and pensions, will be the state priority. We plan that support for mountainous areas will have a separate line in the next year's State Budget. The figure in front of this line depends on the quality of projects we have proposed together with the regions.

This was informed by Vyacheslav Nehoda, First Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine, during a roundtable discussion on the prospects for the development of mountainous territories of the Ukrainian Carpathians, held in Ivano-Frankivsk.

He recalled that on 14 August, the Government designated MinRegion as the main implementer of measures for the development of the Ukrainian Carpathians region.

In particular, MinRegion was instructed to prepare and approve the State Programme for the Development of the Carpathian Region of Ukraine for 2020 – 2022 by the end of September of the current year, taking into account the proposals of the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Economic Development and Ministry of Finance to predict expenses for the implementation of the State Programme in the draft Law on the State Budget of Ukraine for 2020 and subsequent years.

«Offer specific projects on infrastructure, service, tourism, crafts, business support development and more. Projects applying for public funding should have a multiplying effect, really develop territories, and not patch holes. Your project proposals will be separate annexes to the State Programme. We understand that currently you have almost no such ready projects, so we have developed and offer you an application form that will help you quickly create a project application. We are expecting applications from you in the coming weeks,” the First Deputy Minister addressed the event participants – representatives of hromadas, rayon and oblast councils and state administrations.

He also recalled that MinRegion is already developing a plan for the planning of mountainous areas and a system for monitoring their socio-economic development. Completion of this work will be one of the main tasks of the State Programme.

A it is known, MinRegion plans to submit to the Government the draft State Programme for the Development of the Ukrainian Carpathians Region already this September.