Dominique Strauss-Kahn to present IMF position on global crises and their influence on Ukraine

Managing Director of The International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, will be a key speaker at the First Plenary Session within the 5th annual Yalta European Strategy summit (YES), dedicated to the problem of world economic crises' impact on Ukraine.

He is to arrive to Yalta right after the Group of Eight (G8) summit, to be held on Hokkaido Island (Japan). One of the main topics at G8 summit will be the discussion of the topline IMF report, entitled "Food and Fuel Prices: Today's Situation, Macroeconomic Impact and Political Responses". This is the first complex estimation of the world crisis, made by IMF.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn presented the Report on July, 2 in his interview to British Financial Times newspaper. The report deals with description of challenges caused by macroeconomic destabilization for many countries of the world, including Ukraine.

The IMF Report "Food and Fuel Prices: Today's Situation, Macroeconomic Impact and Political Responses" contains a forecast that oil and food price increase may "significantly weaken" the economies of 75 developing countries. The protracted price crisis may lead to the tilted payment balance and destabilization of macroeconomic situation in these countries, in case governments do not pay substantial attention to budget policy and fight against inflation. The crisis will, according to IMF Report, most gravely impact the countries of Asia, former USSR, Central America and countries of Africa, situated to the South of Sahara Desert. The IMF ties the vulnerability of Ukrainian position with high inflation rate (which takes the third place in the world as for results of the first half of the year) and great (more than 50%) share of food and fuel in the households' expenditure patterns.

Besides Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Anders Aslund, the Senior Fellow at Peterson Institute for International Economics, Klaus Mangold, the Head of "East-West" German Industry Committee, and Leszek Balcerowicz, The Head of National Bank of Poland, are to participate in the First Plenary Session of the 5th Yalta European Strategy (YES) summit to discuss the global crises' impact on Ukraine.

The 5th Yalta European Strategy (YES) summit will take place in Yalta on July, 10-13. The participant list includes Lech Kaczynski, the President of Poland; Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of The International Monetary Fund (IMF); Aleksander Kwasniewski, the President of Poland in 1995-2005 and YES Member of the Board; Marek Siwiec, Vice President of the European Parliament. Tony Blair, the Prime Minister of the Great Britain in 1997-2007, will be a special guest of the Summit.

The discussions will be attended by the leading strategists of the biggest USA political parties: Karl Rove, a Republican, former Deputy Head of Presidential Administration for George Bush, Jr. and a chief strategist of George Bush's presidential election campaigns, as well as Bob Shrum, a Democrat, political consultant for Albert Gore's and John Kerry's election campaigns. Richard Haas, President of Council on Foreign Relations, will act as a moderator for these discussions.

More than 160 politicians, public characters, businessmen and diplomats from more than 20 countries of the world will take part in the Summit.

The 5th Yalta European Strategy (YES) summit aims at discussing the current global challenges and their impact on Europe and Ukraine. The Summit will highlight new challenges and opportunities caused by the global financial and food crises, the problems of EU transformation and the future of the Lisbon Treaty, energy security and strategies for the EU, the Black Sea region and Ukraine.