The present grain export quota system in Ukraine is inefficient and restricts the inflow of investment, according to Martin Raiser, World Bank's Country Director for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova.
"Our official position is to revise the quota system not only because it is inefficient, but because its introduction method is not transparent. This is a bad signal if the country wants to attract investment," he told the press on Thursday at the seventh annual conference organized by Dragon Capital Investment Company.
Raiser expressed hope that a compromise in the issue would be found after a dialogue between the authorities and market players.
As reported, referring to Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry Mykola Prysiazhniuk, on Wednesday Ukraine’s government prolonged the country’s grain export quotas until July 1, 2011, having simultaneously increased the quota for maize exports by two million tonnes.
In extending the effect of the export quotas, the Cabinet of Ministers backed a proposal from the Economic Development and Trade Ministry announced on March 29.
In early October 2010, the Ukrainian government introduced quotas for grain exports until December 31, 2010. At the end of last year, the quotas were extended until March 31, 2011. The total size of the quotas was increased by 1.5 million tonnes, to 4.2 million tonnes.
Since then, the quotas were distributed twice in a way that was sharply criticized by market operators, as most of the companies were unable to receive the grain availability certificates from the Agricultural Policy and Food Ministry that they needed to apply for the quotas.
However, First Deputy Head of Ukraine’s Presidential Administration Iryna Akimova said on Tuesday that Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych demanded that after March 31, when the quotas on grain exports expire, a document be drafted to replace them, if necessary, with customs measures
