Ukraine started to modernize its main industrial enterprises in 2009 despite the global financial crisis, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has said.

She said this at a roundtable entitled “Ukraine in 2010-2020” on Friday, the media liaisons office of the Ukrainian government's secretariat reported.

Tymoshenko said that a switch to market-oriented prices for energy resources had prompted the active introduction of energy saving technologies. “We're currently replacing natural gas with other alternative types of energy,” she said, adding that the country launched the program on a switch from fuel oil to alternative types of fuel.