On April, 10 in Kyiv the Ukrainian Land Forum will take place in the Ukrainian House. The Ukrainian Agrarian Council is an organizer of this event. During the Forum, representatives of the authorities, farmers, MPs and invited guests from other countries will raise topical issues of land reform in Ukraine.
In particular, participants of the Forum will become familiar with the experience of Lithuania and other Baltic countries on establishment of agricultural land market. Kazis Starkiavichius, deputy chairman of the Committee on rural Affairs of the Lithuanian Sejm, will tell who now owns the land in their country and who has the right to purchase it and what mistakes their neighbours have made in this sphere.
Members of the Agrarian Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Oleksandr Bakumenko (Acting Chairman of the Committee), Ivan Miroshnichenko and Sergey Labazyuk, as well as Olha Trofimtseva, an Acting Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, will express their vision of possible options towards the implementation of land market in Ukraine. Andriy Dykun, a Chairman of the public union, will represent the Ukrainian Agrarian Council.
The TOP-5 contestants for the Presidency of Ukraine: Volodymyr Zelensky, Petro Poroshenko, Yulia Tymoshenko, Yuriy Boiko and Anatoliy Hrytsenko are invited to participate in the Forum. Politicians will present their vision on this topic: whether Ukraine needs the land market and in what format, when it should be introduced and who can be its participant.
Other participants of the Forum:
– Representatives of the parties that signed the memorandum on support of small and medium-sized farmers, – Batkivschyna pary, Association Samopomich, Opposition Platform Za Zhyttia;
– Representatives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB), the IFC, USAID, the EBRD;
– Representatives of the National Bank, the NABU and commercial banks;
– Experts from Estonia and Lithuania;
– Representatives of other agrarian associations, which are included in the “Ukrainian Agrarian Forum”;
– Heads and owners of small and medium agrarian business.
Agrarians will express their position on topical issues of land reform by taking part in the interactive voting. According to its results, the UAC will form reform proposals to be forwarded to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, members of the Agrarian Committee and all parliamentary parties, TOP-5 candidates for the presidency of Ukraine.
Event Date: April 10, 2019.
Registration Starts at 09:30.
Venue: Ukrainian House (Kyiv, Khreschatyk Street, 2).
MEDIA Accreditation: press@uacouncil.org.
Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelensky said he is determined to create a favorable climate for foreign and domestic investments in Ukraine if elected president. “As concerns business relations, economic relations with the West, they are expecting guarantees, they believe they will have a guarantee with a new president. After all, an appropriate climate should appear for both Ukrainian investments and Western investments,” Zelensky said in an interview shown on the Ukraina television channel.
Ukraine should set up a special institution dealing with economic crimes, Zelensky said.
“The law enforcement agencies, such as the Security Service, the Prosecutor General’s Office, and the Interior Ministry, must be deprived of all functions of putting pressure on the business sector and influencing the economy,” he said.
Zelensky insisted on “relaunching” anti-corruption bodies and the Anti-Corruption Court, “because two years have passed, and promises still keep being made, but I think we will be able to do all that.”
In Q1 2019, Georgia exported 19.4 million bottles (0.75l) of natural grape wine, a 10% increase year-on-year, according to the country’s National Wine Agency.
Revenue from wine exports (to a total of 37 countries) grew 16% to $47 million.
According to the National Wine Agency, Russia accounted for the greatest share, with deliveries growing 15.4% to 13.279 million bottles (68.4% of total exports).
Other major importers were Ukraine (1.419 million bottles, or 7.3% of total exports), China (1.373 million, 7.1%), Poland (1.032 million, 5.3%), and Kazakhstan (560,460, 2.9%).
There were also increases in exports to the U.S., Belarus and other European countries, and Asian countries. A total of 148 Georgian companies exported wine, compared with 134 a year before.
The most popular wines for export were the semi-sweet red Kindzmarauli (3.7 million bottles), the dry red Mukuzani (1.2 million), the dry white Tsinandali (890,458), and the semi-sweet reds Akhasheni (422,220) and Khvanchkara (226,072).
Georgia also exported 6 million bottles (0.5l) of brandy to 14 countries for $12.4 million, a 1.7-fold increase; 118,000 bottles of chacha (2.7-fold growth), and cognac and winemaking materials. Total revenue from sales was $67.7 million (up 4.5%).
In 2018, Georgia increased its exports of wine 13% to 86.2 million bottles, a 30-year record. It delivered wine to 53 countries, and revenue from sales increased 20% to $203 million. Total revenue from sales of wine products abroad grew 7% to $306.5 million.
The European Commission is ready to cooperate with any candidate elected in the presidential elections in Ukraine, Katarina Mathernova, the Deputy Director-General for Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations at the European Commission, said in a comment to Hromadske. She said it doesn’t matter whether Zelensky [showman Volodymyr Zelensky] or Poroshenko [incumbent President Petro Poroshenko] will be elected, they will work with any of them.
Mathernova said that Zelensky was not known in the political sphere, therefore, the voice of Ukrainian civil society should be especially heard and supported.
If there is Poroshenko’s second term, we know that the second term is still a slightly different mobilization, a new factor for civil society, she added.
