KIEV, June 03. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukraine is losing markets for its goods by rejecting closer partnership with member countries of the Customs Union (of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan), Viktor Medvedchuk, the leader of the Ukrainian Choice public movement, said on Tuesday.

“More to it, keeping aloof from the powerful Eurasian economic association, our country may find itself an outsider in the region running the risk of not only halting the development of a number of biggest industries but also of losing its current positions on the global arena,” he noted. “It is more than obvious that despite all the promises from European envoys, the European markets will remain closed for goods of the Ukrainian origin. Miserable quotas, the complicated and lengthy certification and licensing procedures, high customs duties - these protective barriers will make large-scale exports of Ukrainian goods to the European Union next to impossible.”

In conditions of the socio-economic crisis, Ukraine’s joining the European Union free trade zone with the Ukrainian market open for European manufacturers would “kill the Ukrainian economy,” he stressed.