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state monopoly, was named a suspect on November 12 in a criminal case for failing to declare assets opened by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, as reported by the pravda.com.uanews site. The assets include two apartments with a combined value of more than UAH3mn, as well as a car worth UAH10mn. Before becoming general director of Ukroboronprom in 2018, Bukin led Ukrspetseksport, the state monopoly overseeing the foreign trade of military hardware. Ukraine’s parliament, led by The People’s Servant party aligned with the president, voted on November 12 to approve in the first reading a bill liquidating intermediary firms alleged to have provided illicit revenue for MP Anton Yatsenko. These firms siphoned at least UAH23mn from payments made by private companies to conduct appraisals of real estate being sold by the State Property Fund, as alleged by a news report in August 2018 by the bihus.info news site. A scandal erupted in late October when the Specialized Anti-Prosecutor’s Office opened a criminal case against 11 MPs on the parliamentary finance, tax and customs policy committee for each allegedly taking a $30K bribe for withdrawing support for legislation to eliminate Yatsenko’s intermediaries.
EU voices support, guidelines for Ukraine land market launch. The EU Delegation to Ukraine has published a statement expressing its support for the Zelenskiy administration’s current efforts to launch a farmland market in Ukraine, as reported on November 13 by the eurointegration.com.ua news site. The reform, which can “open the enormous potential for Ukraine’s economy,” should be based on the rule of law, permanence, transparency, justice and comprehensiveness, said the statement issued by the delegation’s press service. The EU also recommends that small farms be the foundation of a system of state support, the statement said. “At the launch of this market, it’s important to establish guarantees to avoid excessive concentration of land in the hands of a few operators, ensure just treatment of the owners of small plots who want to sell them, and guarantee the rights of active small farmers, who wish to acquire agricultural land,” the statement said.
Through various ‘gray’ strategies, a farmland market of about $400mn a year already exists in Ukraine, Milovanov said. He said 27mn hectares are farmland is privately owned, but owners do not have the right to sell it. To gradually start a market, after Oct. 1, 2020, the government plans to sell state-owned farmland plots in all 24 regions.
With the Economy Ministry calculating that the average market price of land to be $2,200, the total value of Ukraine’s farmland would be $95bn. Allowing farmers to use their land titles as collateral for bank loans will add 1.5 percentage points to Ukraine’s GDP growth in the 2020s, predicts the World Bank.
Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller says Ukraine must drop all legal claims against Russia’s state gas company before a 10-year gas transit contract
15 UKRAINE Country Report December 201 www.intellinews.com
