Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

KYIV, Oct 26 - Germany will help Ukraine create a banking system for the agriculture sector that would help fledgling private farmers, Germany's ambassador to Ukraine said Thursday.

Ambassador Dietmar Stuedemann discussed Ukrainian land reform with Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Hlady, and promised help in improving the agriculture sector's statistics collection, a spokeswoman for the

German Embassy said.

Germany will offer legal and scientific consultations to Ukrainian agriculture specialists, and arrange tours for Ukrainian lawmakers and scientists to Germany, she said. Details of the promised banking system were unclear.

Last year, President Leonid Kuchma abolished Ukraine's more than 10,000 Soviet-era collective farms and decreed that the fertile land be divided among farm workers. The long-awaited move, a slap to the Communist opposition, was an attempt to reverse the rapid fall in farm production.

So far, 6.3 million Ukrainian farmers have received land lots of an average of 4.2 hectares (10.37 acres) each, according to Hlady.

Still, many of them need legal and managerial advice – and loans - to make their land profitable.