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6.1.4 Budget dynamics - privatization
‘Small’ privatizations – the sale of state assets that litter Ukraine 30 years after the collapse of communism – netted the government $61mn during the first half of this year. This is four times the amount of the same January-June period last year, the State Property Fund writes on Facebook. Increasingly popular, the sales are online, are open to bidders from across the nation and are designed to put to productive use long dormant properties, largely real estate.
The State Property Fund expects to have sold UAH1.67bn ($1.3mn) worth of assets in small-scale privatization auctions in the first half of 2021, the state agency reported on Facebook on July 6. The expected revenue is four times the amount received in the same period last year. Starting prices of assets up for small-scale privatization have grown by an average of 118.5% since last year, according to the fund. In 2019, growth in starting prices was near-nonexistent at 1.6%. In 2018, then-President Petro Poroshenko signed a law on privatization of small-scale businesses intended to help sell off more than 3,000 state-owned companies, many of which were inefficient cash cows for corruption, to improve management and bring in revenue to the state budget. In 2020, lawmakers also voted to unblock large-scale privatization in the country, opening the way to the long-awaited sale of large public assets to private companies. Auctions are public and conducted through ProZorro.Sale, a transparent electronic auction platform.
Ukrzaliznytsia is auctioning 22 ‘non-core’ real estate properties in six cities in July, Ivan Yuryk, the Acting CEO of the state railroad, said yesterday. Through the Prozorro.Sales electronic platform, UZ is selling properties in Kyiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Sinelnikovo, Smela and Chop. Joining a national movement to give dead state properties a new life under private ownership, UZ plans to sell 182 such properties this year. “All objects offered for sale are located in attractive places for doing business, potential buyers will be able to see them in person,” Yuryk tells the UZ press service. “We will provide unimpeded access to them. Therefore, we invite everyone to participate in the auctions.”
30 UKRAINE Country Report August 2021 www.intellinews.com