KIEV, Dec. 28 – The hryvnia may weaken in 2010 if Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko - one of the leading candidates - wins the presidential election next month, a senior official at President Viktor Yushchenko’s office said Monday.

Oleksandr Shlapak, Yushchenko’s top economic policy aide, said Tymoshenko’s plans call for boosting money printing as a way of helping the economy.

“This would undermine the hryvnia,” Shlapak told Interfax-Ukraine.

Tymoshenko, in a recent interview, said that she would unlock the resources of the NBU to flood the economy with money and to boost economic growth if she wins the election.

“After the presidential election, the NBU’s blockage will be lifted,” Tymoshenko said in the interview with Fokus magazine. The NBU “inflicted Holodomor [Death by Hunger] for the economy and for the government’s programs.”

“I think that the work of the Cabinet of Ministers, plus the normal crediting of the economy, plus positive [growth] trends in the world will help us to overcome the crisis and to change our economy,” Tymoshenko said.

According to the constitution, the president is nominating the governor of the NBU, but the candidacy must be approved by Parliament.

Yushchenko often clashed with Tymoshenko over the use of the NBU resources this year, blocking the rampant money printing that has been requested by the government.

Ukraine’s economy is expected to shrink about 15% on the year in 2009, one of the worst such indicators in Europe, as the country appears to be badly hit by the global financial crisis.

The hryvnia lost more than 50% of its value over the past 12 months since the start of the economic crisis that had reduced Ukraine’s hard currency earnings.

Shlapak, who was a deputy governor of the NBU in 2004, said that the hryvnia may keep its value stable at 8 hryvnia per U.S. dollar in 2010.

“We are in a very good trend concerning the national currency right now,” Shlapak said. “If the NBU maintains professional approach next year we will have the stable hryvnia.”

Ukraine is due to pay out about $30 billion worth of foreign debts next year, including state and corporate, the level the NBU can handle, he said. The NBU currently has about $26 billion in foreign exchange reserves.

“It all depends on us: if we don’t do stupid things at the government and the NBU we will have a stable national currency next year,” Shlapak said. (nr/ez)