March 4 2003, 10:04 Interfax-Ukraine

Ukrainian minister proposes to redistribute VAT reimbursement funds

Ukraine's Minister of Economy and for the Issues of European Integration Valeriy Khoroskivsky said to a workshop on Ukraine's WTO accession, held on March 3 in Kharkov, that the sums of VAT reimbursement, allocated to exporters of agricultural products, had better be redistributed to agricultural producers as a purpose-oriented state subsidy. He said in this case the level of state support to farmers would become transparent and could then be negotiated at WTO accession talks (he had criticized the existing system of single farm tax and VAT reimbursement to exporters for lack of transparency, resulting in inability to determine the actual level of farm subsiding in Ukraine).

Answering the questions of the workshop participants, he said that Ukraine was currently negotiating at the WTO accession talks a sum of 3 billion hryvnias ($559.7 million) as a permissible level of state annual farm subsidies in Ukraine after it joins the organization, Interfax-Ukraina news agency informed.