6 December 2011
Ukraine’s parliament is scheduled to vote on the second reading the Law on Land Market this week, House Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn said yesterday. According to Lytvyn, the bill will place strict limitations on possible buyers of Ukrainian agro-purpose land. In earlier versions of the legislation, only the state, individual Ukrainian citizens and (possibly) Ukrainian-owned farming enterprises will qualify to purchase land. According to Lytvyn, the final draft includes remark that law should be effective only since January 1, 2013. Yegor Samusenko: The legislation is the final hurdle required to cancel the moratorium on land sales. Since the cancelation of the ban is politically unpopular at the moment, its extension to end-2012 looks to play into the interests of policymakers on the eve of the October 2012 parliamentary elections. We keep our view that lifted moratorium will have minor effect on listed agricultural companies: we expect most of them will continue leasing land. Russian eight-year land market is indicative: only 2% of land is now owned by farming companies.