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Vice Prime Minister opposes discrimination on Ukraine's grain market
The First Vice-Prime Minister of Ukraine Anatoly Kinakh has disapproved the preferences, provided to the state companies on Ukrainian grain market speaking to a press conference Friday.
He said that the recently released ruling of the Cabinet of Ministers broke the rules of fair competition on the grain market and contradicted to the legislative norms of Ukraine.
"We suggest making amendment into the ruling, in order that the measures for increasing competitiveness should be applied to all the economic subjects, irrespective of the forms of ownership", Mr. Kinakh said to the media.
According to him, the decision, providing such preferences to the state operators of grain market, is unacceptable since it contradicts to international obligations of Ukraine and may become an obstacle for granting it the status of market economy country.
"I view this ruling as another backset, which is not to be tolerated", he said.
On July 29 this year Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine issued a ruling, entitled "On the Measures for Price Stabilisation on the Grain Market and for Ensuring Its Break-Even Production", whereby it ordered the Committee for State Reserves to purchase 1 million tonnes of grain and the State Joint-Stock Company "Khlib Ukrainy" - 2 million tonnes. For these two governmental bodies there have been also arranged a series of preferences, i.e.: strictly limited timing of export VAT refund (three days since submission of the documents), maximally cut amount of port service fees to be charged at grain exports, reduced tariffs for inland grain transportation (by 15.26 percent from the regular rates). Besides, the enterprises of State Reserves and Khlib Ukrainy till the end of year have been exempt from paying extra services, charged by load carriers from the clients at non-fixed tariffs.
According to calculations of grain market analysts, such preferences will enable these two governmental agencies to save 30 to 40 hryvnias ($6 to 8) per each tonne of grain.
The non-market preferences, given to the state companies, were also strongly opposed by Ukrainian Grain Association and Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation. These organisations stated that by issuing the ruling the government had violated the law about protection of fair competition in the economy. They claimed that the ruling should be abolished.