Awarding only farmers and state agent with right to export farm products to lead to monopolization of agrarian market, say experts
Kyiv, February 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The adoption of a draft law foreseeing the export of products for which prices are state-regulated by only farmers and a state agent will lead to the monopolization of the agrarian market, according to President of the Ukrainian Grain Association (UGA), Volodymyr Klymenko.
"The draft law concerns market monopolization, which will destroy the agrarian market and push it backwards to 20 years ago," he said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine in Kyiv on February 11.
He said that lawmakers Vitaliy Bort (the Regions Party), Maryna Perestenko (Communist Party), Serhiy Tereschuk (Bloc of Lytvyn) and Ivan Sidelnyk (BYT) had registered a draft law that will permit the export of products for which prices are regulated by the state, only by farmers, in a volumes equal to their own output, or to a state agent.
Klymenko said that farmers have never lost their right to export products, and the document proposes to restrict exports by farmers to the volume of their harvest. The expert said that the adoption of the law would imply that traders would be able to work with Ukrainian grain only on FOB conditions. He said that grain traders are the owners of linear and port elevators and grain processing terminals, investing in the company large money.
"If traders are deprived of the right to export, no investment will be seen," he said.
He added that the endorsement of the draft law would worsen the investment attractiveness of the Ukrainian agrarian sector.
"If the draft law becomes a law, there will be nothing for our farming companies to do on the international stock markets," he said.
A managing partner of Volkov and Partners law firm, Oleksiy Volkov, said the draft law registered in the parliament is not in line with Ukrainian law, in particular, the Ukrainian Constitution, the Economic Code, and the laws on foreign economic activities and on the protection of economic competition.
"The creation of a state agent means the creation of a super monopoly… If the draft law were to be adopted, this will mean that a whole range of activities, in which a large group of companies is engaged, will be effectively excluded from the types of economic activities. This means that no one will export commodity grain," the expert said.
As reported, according to Ukrainian law, the Ukrainian cabinet defines a list of products, the prices of which are regulated by the state through the Agrarian Fund each year.