Fri Feb 22, 2013 5:39am EST
* IMF has told Ukraine it should raise gas prices
* Ukraine negotiating $15 bln loan from Fund
KIEV Feb 22 (Reuters) - Ukraine's president promised on Friday his government would not raise the price of gas in households across the country, a pledge which could complicate Kiev's talks with the IMF for a new $15 billion loan.
"You can be certain of this ... We are not going to raise gas prices for the population or for industry," Viktor Yanukovich said in a televised question-and-answer session with people around the country.
The International Monetary Fund, which has held talks with Kiev on a new stand-by loan, insists that raising the heavily-subsidised prices of gas is key to cutting Ukraine's budget deficit and making state finances sustainable.
An IMF mission which visited Kiev earlier this month raised the issue again saying that large subsidies on gas and heating for households continued "to undermine Ukraine's budget and its balance of payments".
The Fund, which is sending a team again to Kiev in March to continue talks on a new loan, warned Ukraine it faced a second year of near-zero growth and was vulnerable to further shocks due to its high current account deficit.
The former Soviet republic relies hugely on gas imported from Russia to heat its homes and power its industry, but its economy is dragged down by the high price if pays for supplies from Russia - $430 per thousand cubic metres.
Yanukovich's government has tried to persuade Russia to lower the price of gas which is fixed in a 10-year contract brokered in 2009 by the previous government of now-jailed prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko - so far unsuccessfully.
Yanukovich, who faces re-election in 2015, said: "I think we can revive normal relations with Russia in the gas sector and we are working on this. We are not losing hope."
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