The Verkhovna Rada's committee on agrarian policy and land relations has set the ceiling limit for the total area of agricultural land plots that can be leased by one person at 10% of the district's territory, but not more than 100,000 hectares across Ukraine.
The previous wording of a related bill stipulated that one entity, either an individual or a business, could not lease more than 6,000 hectares in the same district and more than 5% of the agricultural land in one region (Ukraine is administratively divided into 24 regions, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, and two cities with special status – Kyiv and Sevastopol. A district is a territorial unit of either a region or a city).
According to a posting on the Verkhovna Rada’s Web site on Wednesday, the committee finished considering amendments to the bill on the land market (No. 9001-d) and recommended that parliament pass it at second reading and as a whole.
The bill stipulates that an individual with Ukrainian citizenship, a territorial community and the state are the subjects of the land market.
The document also suggests that one individual could be allowed to simultaneously own plots of land designated for agricultural production, private farming and farms with a total area of not more than 100 hectares.
The bill also contains a provision according to which the transfer of ownership of a plot of agricultural land shall not terminate the right to lease it.
A State Land Bank will represent the interests of the state on the land market, reads the posting.
At the same time, as the Agrarian Policy Ministry’s press service reported with reference to Minister Mykola Prysiazhniuk, the bill on the land market is on the agenda of a plenary meeting in parliament scheduled for January 12, 2012.
The minister believes that a decision to consider the bill will be taken by faction leaders.
Prysiazhniuk noted that the finalized bill takes into consideration the opinions of both pro-government parties and the opposition.
"If the opposition states that the law is pro-government, I can say that 50% of the amendments were made by the deputies of the coalition and the same number came from the opposition. Therefore I am sure that discussion [of the amendments] was constructive, and the law will work effectively," he added.
