KIEV, June 10 – President Viktor Yushchenko will hold a special meeting on Thursday to examine measures that would improve finances of Naftogaz Ukrayiny to secure steady imports and transit of natural gas.

Last week Yushchenko asked the National Bank of Ukraine to print 3.8 billion hyrvnias to help Naftogaz pay for Russian gas imports in May, underscoring the dire state of the company.

“The president insists that a complex reform of Naftogaz is needed,” Iryna Vannikova, Yushchenko’s spokeswoman, said Wednesday. “Social mission of oil and gas companies, at the expense of which the government has been paying for its populist policy, must finally end.”