May 16 2008, 09:48

Ukraine is a full-fledged member of WTO since today. Have the import tariff rates been already decreased?

Since today Ukraine has become the full fledged WTO member despite of the fact that a number of the commitments to this organizations has not been fulfilled yet. In particular, the main obligation is to introduce changes to the Law "About the custom tariff". UNIAN got this information from the source in the Ministry of Economics of Ukraine, who is well informed about the process of Ukraine's entrance to WTO. The source also informed that the ratification of the protocol about the entrance to WTO and the assurances of the President Yuschenko were enough to admit Ukraine to the membership. Also, according to the President "the Prime-Minister has already instructed the Custom Service to work according to the tariff rates specified in the protocol about the entrance to WTO since May 16th".

At the present moment the specialists of "Fruit-Inform" are trying to find out what tariff rates have been applied to the vegetable and fruit imports since today. However, it is hard to believe that a verbal assurance may have the power of the Law - we have failed to find any official documents about the new tariff rates by the present moment.

We'd like to point out that the list of the countries - WTO members on the official WTO website has not been updated yet - Ukraine is absent there. However, there is no information that Ukraine is not admitted as the WTO member. The recent message about Ukraine, dated April 21st 2008, says that Ukraine is to become the WTO member of the 16th of May 2008, i.e. today.

Please find out how the tariff rates for fresh and processed fruits and vegetables are going to decrease, and what is the impact on the prices for fruits and vegetables in a new season in the survey "The forecast of the production and prices for fruits and vegetables in Ukraine in 2008". You can order the survey per tel: +38-0562-3207905 or e-mail [email protected]. The survey costs UAH 2,500. "Fruit-Inform" subscribers have the discount of UAH 500.