You're reading: Yanukovych vetoes law on sale of grain export quotas at auctions

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has vetoed the law on amendments to some laws of Ukraine to ensure there is state support for the development of agriculture, giving to the Ukrainian cabinet the right to sell grain export quotas at auctions.

Yanukovych vetoed the law on April 28, the presidential press service reported on Friday.

The law envisages the distribution of grain export quotas through selling them at auctions. "Such approach doesn’t comply with the obligations Ukraine has undertaken under multilateral trade agreements of the WTO," the head of state believes.

The president also believes that the introduction of transparent and efficient administrative procedures of governmental control of the grain market is a condition to ensure food security of the state.

As reported, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, on April 7, 2011 approved amendments to some laws of Ukraine to ensure there is state support for the development of agriculture, giving to the Ukrainian cabinet the right to sell grain export quotas at auctions.

The MPs introduced an amendment to the law according to which funds from auctions to sell quotas for grain exports and imports and products of grain processing are to be accumulated on a special-purpose account and used for the work in sowing buckwheat (30% of the funds) and the rest of the funds (70%) on sowing other crops.

In early October 2010 the Ukrainian government introduced grain quotas for the period until December 31, 2010. The quotas were extended late in 2010 until March 31, 2011. The overall size of the quotas was increased by 1.5 million tonnes of grain, to 4.2 million tonnes.

Late in March 2011, the government decided to extend grain quotas for one more quarter, having increased the quota for the export of corn by two million tonnes. Prysiazhniuk said that the quotas would be distributed at an auction.