The work on the text of the agreement on a free trade zone (FTA) between Ukraine and Israel will be completed soon, Minister of Jerusalem Affairs and Minister of Environmental Protection of Israel Zeev Elkin, who heads the Israeli intergovernmental development commission of bilateral international relations, said.
“I think that by the end of the year the text of the treaty will be completed and prepared by our countries for official signing, if not at the end of this, then at the beginning of next year,” Elkin said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
He stressed that the signing of this document will give “a very strong impetus to the development of economic relations” of the two countries, because “the free trade zone seriously simplifies all tax issues and makes financial cooperation much more beneficial.”
According to Elkin, during the sixth round of negotiations on the FTA agreement it was not possible, as planned, to initial it, as the parties did not reach an agreement on a number of issues, including the list of goods covered by the agreement, as well as on the terms of wheat delivery from Ukraine to Israel.
“At present, Ukraine is one of the main suppliers of wheat to Israel and the former asked to guarantee rather large benefits in the framework of the free trade area in terms of the supply of wheat. In principle, Israel was ready to meet this request, but it asked for guarantees of food security, that is, guarantees of supplies, no matter what happens in Ukraine. There is a rule according to which during lean years, all the products go first of to the domestic market and there is the right to violate the international obligations for deliveries. We are searching for formulas which will allow Israel to be sure that it can count on Ukrainian grain supplies in the long term, and for Ukraine to receive discounts during the supply of wheat, which it requested under this agreement,” Elkin said.
He noted that the parties to the negotiations already have an understanding on “what the model should be in general terms, but there is no agreement on its details yet.”
Elkin said that Israel agreed to the proposal of Ukrainian partners not to include services in the first draft of the agreement.
“Ultimately, we agreed to the proposal of the Ukrainian side and agreed that in order to speed up the signing, the services need to left out of the first version of the agreement, which will be later expanded. That is, the agreement will include an item stating that some time after its signing, the negotiations will begin about its expansion into the field of services. It is necessary to understand that the services include IT-technologies, that’s why this is quite a serious issue of cooperation between our countries,” Elkin said.
