The Economist quotes Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center Resident Senior Fellow Anders Aslund on Ukraine’s spending cuts and bank reforms:
Dramatic spending cuts have also helped right the government’s finances. The budget is in surplus so far for 2015. Anders Aslund of the Atlantic Council, a think-tank, says that in two years it has reduced public spending from 53% of GDP to 46%. With private debt markets closed to it, the government has little choice but to cut. “In the last year we have reduced staffing of government by a fifth,” says Natalie Jaresko, the finance minister. Spending on benefits and health care is down.