MOSCOW, June 1. /TASS/. Ukraine could become a perfect place for economic development, if the conflict is resolved and if there is peace, American economist Jeffrey Sachs told TASS in an interview.

"If there were peace, it [Ukraine] could be a perfectly fine place for economic development. Ukraine has the potential of a diversified economy. It's not a simple economy, it's an agricultural power. It could have mining potential, it's an industrial economy, it's a service economy," said Sachs, who serves as the director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.

If it were not for the conflict, Sachs continued, the country could develop tourism, transport services and finance. "In other words, a country at that scale can be a quite diversified economy that has its role in many sectors, not just in one. Of course, the war, though, is killing Ukraine. It's literally killing Ukrainians, and it's metaphorically destroying the economy," he argued.

According to Sachs, Ukraine would be what he called a sizeable country in the future. "We don't know the population afterwards, but somewhere between 20 and 30 million people, perhaps, so not a small place. And between Russia and Western Europe, or between Russia and the European Union, I should say, to be more precise," he concluded.