Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
AgMin initiates reduction of sunseeds export duty despite disapproval of crushers
Ministries of Economy and Agrarian Policy of Ukraine have prepared a bill about reduction of export duty for sunflower seeds from current 17 to 15 percent.
As it has become known to the APK-Inform reporter, the document is currently still on a preparation stage. It has been already arranged in the Customs and Tariffs Committee, but has not yet been registered in Parliament. A spokesman for the Economy Ministry said that the document had been initiated by Agrarian Policy Ministry.
The Ukrainian Oilseed Industry Association "Ukroliyaprom", however, states that noting for mass-scale exports of sunflower seeds in this marketing year, it opposes to any reduction of the duty.
"Up to January 2004 [since the start of marketing year] Ukraine exported 630,000 tonnes of sunseeds, while the figure over the whole past marketing year constituted 341,000 tonnes", a spokesman for Ukroliyaprom has said.
The oil crushers think that the current 17 percent duty is the marginal level, which should not go any lower.
According to experts, one of the main reasons behind this bill was the EU requirement about reduction of export duty for sunseeds, due to interestedness of the European Union countries in the Ukrainian raw material.