The European Commission awaits a final decision on the dispute between Ukraine and the EU on a temporary ban on export of round timber until the end of this year, as follows from the EU’s annual Association Implementation Report.
“Recent draft legal proposals which would introduce local content requirements in public procurement procedures are a cause of concern as they breach the equal treatment and non-discrimination principles of public procurement under the AA, the WTO and the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement,” the report says.
“Regarding trade defense activities, the recent proliferation of safeguard investigations launched by Ukraine have not always been carried out in strict adherence with criteria and standards,” according to the document.
“Following many years of uninterrupted growth favored by the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) established by the AA, bilateral trade in the first eight months of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019 decreased by around 11% as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The EU remains by far Ukraine’s biggest trading partner. Regarding Ukraine’s wood export ban, a longstanding bilateral trade-irritant, a bilateral arbitration panel under the AA has been established and a final ruling of the panel is expected still in 2020,” the EC said.
“With regard to the reform of the Ukrainian forest-based sector, including wood harvesting and trade and, in particular, wood legality, Ukraine authorities from the Ministry of Environment Protection and Natural Resources committed during a TSD (Trade and Sustainable Development) sub-committee meeting in October 2020, to the need for a separation of functions between the management of resources and control functions and thus a reorganization and distribution of responsibilities between control and inspection on the one hand, and wood harvesting and trade on the other,” the report states.
The European Union is ready to begin commercial arbitration with Ukraine to lift a moratorium on exports of round timber as the one violating the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze has said. “Unfortunately, Ukraine really violates the Association Agreement with the introduction of the moratorium on round timber exports. This obligation will be considered as part of commercial arbitration. And the European Union is ready to start this arbitration between Ukraine and the EU,” she said at a briefing in Kyiv. According to the official, the lifting of the moratorium is excluded from the list of conditions for provision of macro-financial assistance by the European Union.
Speaking about the implementation of other provisions of the macro-financial assistance, in particular, the launch of automatic verification of electronic declarations of politicians and officials, the deputy premier said that coordination between various departments is underway to soon come to full ability to conduct automatic checks.
“The only problem that I see at the moment so that this system could work is changes in the legislation. The draft law from the government has been considered by the Verkhovna Rada for a very long time, maybe more than a year, the bill that regulates the automatic connection of the NACP (the National Agency on Corruption Prevention) to different registers,” she added.
Almost all groups of Ukrainian-made commodities demonstrated the growth of exports in the first quarter of 2018 year-over-year, however, exports of timber and paper grew most (by 39%, or $140 million), the Economic Development and Trade Ministry said on its website. “The EU remains the largest trading partner of Ukraine. Exports of goods to the EU during the first quarter of 2018 amounted to $5.07 billion, its share was 44.4% in the total exports of goods from the country,” the ministry said.
Exports of chemicals and related products for the period increased by 29%, or $134 million, those of light industry products grew by 23% ($58 million), metal by 23% ($558 million).
Farm produce and processed food accounted for the largest share of Ukrainian exports (38%), while the share of metallurgy was 26%, that of machine building was 11%, and mineral products 9%, the ministry said.
As reported, in January-March 2018, exports of goods from Ukraine increased by 10.3% year-over-year, to $11.435 billion, while imports grew by 13.2%, to $ 12.636 billion.
