VIENNA, Nov. 8 - Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has proposed that Austrian Federal Chancellor Werner Faymann consider the possibility of investing in the modernization of the Ukrainian gas transport system as an alternative to the construction of the South Stream gas pipeline.

"Of course, we would ask the Austrian side - I know about your talks with the Russian side [on the South Stream project] - to consider constructively as an alternative our idea [of modernizing the Ukrainian gas transport system]," he told the federal chancellor, while speaking at a meeting of the Vienna Economic Forum in Vienna, Austria, on Monday.