KYIV. Sept 3 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Infrastructure Ministry plans to improve the procedure for collecting port dues at Ukrainian seaports, the press service of the ministry has reported.
The press service said that the draft order has been registered.
“The amendments defined in the document would promote an increase in the attractiveness and transparency of the functioning of Ukrainian seaports, and for port operators, ship owners and other companies operating at seaports this means the improvement of doing business conditions,” the report said.
Among changes proposed by the draft order is exemption from paying the canal duty for ships with a water draft of up to four meters which wish to use the Bug-Dnipro Estuary and Kherson sea canals, which would create economic preconditions for the reorientation of freight from roads to rivers, as well as an increase in volume of coastal shipments using inner water ways; the establishment of separate rates of the ship dues for port operators-owners of operational water areas as a mechanism of compensating the funds invested by them in the development of the seaport water area; the exemption from paying the port dues by anchored ships, which do not carry out freight operations.
It is also foreseen that the double accruing of port dues for ships that pass the port water area and the operational water area is not allowed; the requirements on port dues have been specified to avoid different interpretations, port dues discounts have been systematized (they were previously defined in separate orders), which would allow for making their collection more predictable and transparent; a discount of 50% to the port dues in the estuary and on the Danube River is set for international passenger cruisers.
The draft order also propose that the practice of collecting the administrative fee from foreign passenger cruisers with the purpose of servicing passengers-participants of the cruise would be settled, and that ships of the Ukrainian Navy are exempted from paying the fees, etc.
