13:01 17.11.2016

Government approves bill on privatization of Ukrspyrt

2 min read
Government approves bill on privatization of Ukrspyrt

A bill on privatization of Ukrspyrt state-run enterprise has been approved at a government meeting on November 16.

"We propose to take two groups of state-run enterprises in the spirit sector and offer all distilleries we have today in the sector for synchronous privatization," Agricultural Policy and Food Minister Taras Kutoviy said at the meeting.

He said that spirit production in the shadows is expanding in the country, and due to deterioration of industrial facilities today the cash cost of legally produced spirit is 20-30% more than in the EU countries.

"The first group for privatization would include enterprises which vodka companies show their interest to. They would have the right to produce ethyl spirit until the end of 2022 within their capacity. The second group would include all the rest of the enterprises which would be able to produce methyl spirit. We expect that these distilleries will be reoriented to produce bioethanol or used as production facilities for other types of operations," the minister said.

The government would approve the capacity of distilleries before the privatization. The State Property Fund would put them up for sale.

The total capacity of distilleries that would be able to produce ethyl spirit would not exceed 19 million decaliters – this is the assessed domestic consumption, taking into account exports.

"We propose to ban state-run enterprise from producing spirit from January 1, 2018," he said.

The document envisages the complete liberalization of spirit exports and wholesale, while only state-run enterprises will be able to import sprit.

From January 1, 2023 the full liberalization of the sprit sector would begin. Spirit production will be not restricted.

AD
AD
AD
AD
AD