Nov. 23 (Reuters) - A stalled deal under which Libya agreed to lease 100,000 hectares of farmland in ex-Soviet Ukraine will now be implemented, Libya's prime minister said on Tuesday after meeting his Ukrainian counterpart.
Ukraine also agreed to use its expertise in civilian nuclear technology to help Libya develop a nuclear energy capacity, Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi told a news conference after talks with Ukraine’s Mykola Azarov.
The farmland lease deal was brokered last year, but since then there was a change of government in Ukraine. A Libyan official said earlier this year conditions were not right for the deal to proceed and it was on hold.
By pursuing the lease deal with Ukraine, oil exporter Libya joined an international trend — driven by high global food prices — for countries with plenty of cash but little farmland to lease land overseas.
"There is an agreement between Libya and Ukraine to use 100,000 hectares of land for wheat-growing and now the … (Ukrainian government) can make this agreement go ahead," the Libyan prime minister told the news conference.
On nuclear energy cooperation, he said: "Ukraine has experience and they are going to help us in this sector."
