KIEV, June 16 ??“ In a bold attempt to improve their country??™s investment climate, Ukrainian leaders signed a joint declaration Thursday that provides ownership rights guarantees and buries once and for all the issue of re-privatization.

The declaration, signed by President Viktor Yushchenko, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Parliament Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, abandons the list of some 30 businesses whose privatization could have been otherwise reconsidered.

Instead, the government will speed up privatization and will soon sell a number of lucrative companies, such as UkrTelekom, the national phone company, and TurboAtom, the biggest turbine manufacturer in the CIS.

The declaration ends four months of uncertainty in the country??™s business community over which businesses will be subjects to re-privatization action from the government, and how will the dispute be settled.

The document was signed on a day when hundreds of world??™s biggest companies, such as Coca-Cola Co. and Shell, had arrived in Kiev for a high-profile investment conference organized by the World Economic Forum.

???This is an attempt to calm down the world,??? Lytvyn said in a reference to the declaration.

Shortly after taking an office following a popular uprising that toppled regime of President Leonid Kuchma, the new government had pledged to scrutinize the controversial privatizations.

But uncertainty was unleashed when Yushchenko said there would be not more than 30 such businesses, while Tymoshenko had said the list could include 3,000 companies.

Many foreign investors reacted cautiously to the announcements, which had apparently slowed down an inflow of foreign investments, lawmakers said.

???There will be no re-privatization,??? Yushchenko said later in the day addressing the investment forum. ???All ownership disputes will be settled exclusively by courts.???

As a special bonus for investors, the government prepared a list of businesses that will be sold off through transparent auctions, perhaps for the first time in Ukraine??™s modern history.

Besides UkrTelekom and TurboAtom, the list will include Odessa Portside Plant, the major shipper of ammonia, Zaria, a big oil and gas sector equipment maker, Azot, a nitrogen fertilizer producer, LuhanskTeplovoz, the country??™s only locomotive manufacturer.

???The privatization will go on and will accelerate,??? Yushchenko said.

Tymoshenko said: ???The epoch of criminal, shadow and non-transparent privatization is over.??? ???The selling of assets??¦ will be handled in a transparent way and in line with the law.??? (tl/ez)