MOSCOW, Jan. 15 - Standard & Poor's Ratings Services believes the new Ukrainian government's decision to incorporate payouts of "lost savings" liabilities into the 2008 budget, at a cost of just under 3% of GDP, will further stoke demand pressures in an economy that is already overheated, the ratings agency said in a statement on Tuesday.

In total, the government could assume as much as 19.8% of GDP in liabilities via the assumption and revaluation of these Soviet-era retail deposits, the value of which was rendered almost worthless in the early 1990s by hyperinflation. Over the medium term, however, there is a strong possibility that the value of the deposits is once again reduced by higher than budgeted inflation, the statement says.