The Ukrainian Parliament approved the draft law on prolonging the moratorium on selling agricultural land for a year. 236 MPs voted in favour of the decision.
The document prolongs the moratorium for a year, until Jan. 1, 2019. Currently, Ukraine’s more than 40 million hectares of farmland cannot be bought or sold. The land is instead divided into smaller plots that are leased, resulting in relatively low productivity and limited private and foreign investment.
The World Bank stood in favour of the land reform lifting the moratorium, saying that the level of crop yield in Ukraine is significantly lower than in the European countries and emphasizing that the country should develop agriculture and attract the investments in this sphere.
The IMF decided not to make the land reform the main condition for the next tranche, as there is no agreement between the IMF and the Ukrainian Government on the key points of the land reform and the proper project is not worked out.
