The Verkhovna Rada has introduced amendments to the law amending certain laws of Ukraine on reducing deficits of ferrous metal scrap in the domestic market, which have raised the export duty rate from EUR 30 per tonne, to EUR42 per tonne and extended its effect for another 12 months.

Respective bill No. 8226 was supported by 248 lawmakers with the required minimum being 226 votes, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has said.

It was originally planned to extend the duty for another three years - from the current two to five years, but at the suggestion of the head of the parliament's tax committee Nina Yuzhanina, it was prolonged for a year, until September 14, 2019.

The explanatory note to the draft law, which was registered in early April 2018, says that after an increase in the export duty from EUR 10 to EUR 30 per tonne during 2017, there was a tendency for an increase in the production of scrap metal in Ukraine by 7.8% from 2016, to 3.79 million tonnes. This allowed suppliers to maintain the positive dynamics of scrap shipments to domestic metal companies: last year: they increased by 1.85% compared to the previous year, to 3.30 million tonnes, while production volumes were also on the rise.

"The increase in the export duty on scrap of ferrous metals had a positive impact on the domestic metallurgical industry, even despite the fact that its exports in 2017 increased by 78.5% compared to the previous year, to 486,500 tonnes from 272,600 tonnes," it said..

The lawmakers also considered it necessary to raise the export duty on scrap metal to EUR 42 per tonne due to an increase in prices of it on foreign markets, which, according to the authors of the law, will reduce scrap exports by 42%, to 282,200 tonnes in comparison with volumes of 2017 with a reduction in scrap procurement by 2.3% and growth in its supplies to enterprises by 3.6% to 3.42 million tonnes.