About 1,000 entrepreneurs are picketing the Ukrainian House, where the Cabinet of Ministers is holding a meeting, to demand cancellation of the rule that equalizes the pension contributions of individuals and entrepreneurs.

The picketers are gathered at the two entrances to the building, and they are chanting, "Stop Mocking Small Businesses!" "Shame on the government!" and "Cancel the Resolution!"

The picketers also hold placards bearing the slogans, "No to Government Experiments on Small Businesses," "Kuzhel - the Source of Conflict among Small Businesses" "Kuzhel Should Resign for Lies and Destruction of Small Businesses", and "We are Demanding a Fair Pension Reform."

One of the entrepreneurs delivered the picketers' request to Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko during the Cabinet of Ministers meeting, and Tymoshenko said that Oleksandra Kuzhel, the head of the State Committee for Regulatory Policy and Entrepreneurship, would come out to address the picketers and that she herself would address them after the Cabinet of Ministers meeting.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the Cabinet of Ministers equalized individuals and individual entrepreneurs in terms of payment of state pension insurance contributions on April 14.

According to calculations by the Labor and Social Policy Ministry, additional revenues into the Pension Fund will total UAH 1.9 billion within eight months after the Cabinet of Ministers decision comes into effect on May 1.

The Presidential Secretariat is forecasting that the pension Fund will have a deficit of UAH 10.4 billion in 2009.