KIEV, Nov. 9 – Ukraine's trade unions have issued a statement ahead of the IMF mission's visit to Ukraine, in which they called for the resolution of problems by intensifying work on bringing wages out of the shadows, rather than raising the retirement age, expanding employment, and increasing the wage fund through a rise in the share of wages in operating costs for production.

Prime Minister Mykola Azarov then said that there were no plans to raise the retirement age before the introduction of an accumulative pension system, while Deputy Prime Minister Sergiy Tigipko noted that the government had found other sources of revenues that will be proposed for discussion with the IMF.