Israel and Ukraine sign agreement for free trade

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukranian President Petro Poroshenko announced Monday the two countries had signed a free trade agreement. The move is expected to lower import costs for Ukrainian products and increase exports.

“Today a free trade agreement was signed and we have been working on it for many years,” Netanyahu told a joint news conference in Jerusalem. He said the two would “also talk of other ways to increase our cooperation in a variety of fields — in technology, in health, in aerospace, in science and more.”

Poroshenko hailed the signing as a “historic day.”

Earlier, the Ukranian president visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, and met with his Israeli counterpart Reuven Rivlin.

Netanyahu expressed gratitude for Poroshenko’s “continued efforts to eliminate hate speech and combat anti-Semitism in Ukraine.”