On November 23 the XX General Assembly of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine took place in the assembly hall of the hotel "Rus". The Prime-Minister of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovich, the First Deputy chairman of the President of Ukraine Secretariat Ivan Vasyunyk, the Minister for Family, Youth and Sport of Ukraine Yuriy Pavlenko, the First Deputy Minister of Finance Vadym Kopylov, the chairman of the Parliament Committee for Family, Youth, Sport and Tourism Mykola Tomenko took part in the Assembly. Addressing the Assembly Viktor Yanukovych thanked Sergei Bubka who together with Valeriy Borzov has done a lot to represent the national Olympic Movement on the international level.

He also mentioned that the 2007 state budget project foresees the NOC budgeting and 20% increasing of the physical culture and sports budgeting in the whole.

Addressing the representatives of the regions the Prime-Minister of Ukraine declared that the government would always find the ways for financing sports in all regions of our state.

Sergey Bubka has reported to the NOC members for the activity carried out by the NOC of Ukraine. The NOC president's speech was accompanied with the film made by the National Olympic Committee together with the National TV Company of Ukraine. In his speech Sergei Bubka thanked all members of the Olympic family for cooperation and their support in realization of the Program on Olympic Movement Development for the period of 2005-2010. In particularly he highly appreciated a valuable contribution to the Olympic Movement development made by his predecessor, the Prime-Minister Viktor Yanukovich.

Sergey Bubka stated that by now 68% of the tasks undertaken for this year have been fulfilled. As Bubka said the most notable achievements of the NOC were improvement and regulation of the federations' activities as to financial and technical support of the NOC, establishment of the partnership relations and solution of the problems concerning ensuring an effective training of the national sports teams for their main competitions.

The NOC president emphasized that he expected more active work from the NOC regional divisions.

It was done much work for improvement of the national legal base of physical culture and sport and Olympic movement. The NOC of Ukraine together with the Olympic movement subjects worked over the project of the Law of Ukraine on Amendments to the Law of Ukraine On Physical Culture and Sports, the National Program of Physical Culture and Sport Development for 2007-2011 and the project of the Regulations on Children And Youth Sports Schools. It was developed and approved the Ukrainian Olympian's Code of Honour, which has to be a normative background of the Ukrainian educational system.

In order to obtain funds for implementation of different programs and projects the NOC of Ukraine actively worked on the marketing program realization. For the period of Bubka's presidency thanks to the sponsorships agreements the NOC attracted 37 million Hryvnas. "Today our partners are the following companies "UMC", "Samsung Electronics", "Ukreximbank", "Coca-Cola", "Johnson & Johnson", "MSL", "Funny". In the completion stage there are negotiations as to supplying the national Olympic delegation with the NIKE sports wear and the civil clothes produced by the company "Baltika Ukraine", said Sergey Bubka.

Such events gave the NOC a possibility to support so essentially the Olympic movement subjects having subsidized them for two years in the amount of 7 million Hryvna.

A great work has been carried out by the National Olympic Committee concerning an international cooperation. The NOC has concluded the agreements with the NOC of Georgia, the NOC of the Republic of Korea and the NOC of the Republic of China. The most significant event in the history of the NOC of Ukraine was a visit of the IOC President Jacques Rogge to Ukraine.

Talking about the main tasks for the future Sergey Bubka said: "We have to contribute a lot in solution of a number of problems as to social maintenance of athletes, coaches, sports veterans and other specialists in the sphere of physical culture, sport and Olympic movement".
The NOC president emphasized an important need of the state financing the NOC Olympic programs, the completion of the Olympic House construction and establishment of close relations with physical culture and sports societies and other Olympic movement subjects.

In his speech the Chairman of the Parliament Committee for Family, Youth, Sport and Tourism Mykola Tomenko mentioned that the Parliament Committee supported the Government decree and did every possible step to present the NOC of Ukraine in the state budget.

The Minister for Family, Youth and Sport declared that increasing the state budget allocation for sports sphere would improve the training system of athletes and coaches, activate the development of sports sphere and construction of sports facilities.

The General Assembly supported the Executive Board's decision and approved the new membership of the NOC of Ukraine - 141 members.
Sergey Bubka was elected the NOC of Ukraine president for the next term 2006-2010. 114 of 116 NOC members cast their votes in favour of Sergey BUBKA.
The NOC members accepted the new elected president's proposal and elected:

• Mr.Volodymyr BRYNZAK - First Vice-President
• Mr. Valeriy BORZOV - Vice-President
• Mr. Vitaliy KLICHKO - Vice-President
• Mr. Viktor KORZH - Vice-President
• Mr. Grygoriy SURKIS - Vice-President
• Mr. Ravil SAFIULLIN - Vice-President
• Mr. Volodymyr GERASHCHENKO - Secretary General

The Assembly elected a new membership of the NOC Executive Board consisting of 29 persons and a new Auditing Commission at the head of Volodymyr KOVALIOV.

The General Assembly has heard the Auditing Commission's report, approved the NOC budget implementation in the present year and its project for the next year and adopted amendments to the NOC of Ukraine Statute.

Ivan Bondarchuk,
Press-attache