In response to a temporary, for a year, full trade liberalization by the EU, Ukraine is ready to abolish duties on European goods, said Deputy Minister of Economy – Trade Representative of Ukraine Taras Kachka.
“So that we can continue to talk about maintaining the zero-to-zero regime for longer than 12 months, we are ready to introduce such a mechanism now,” Kachka said during a meeting of the committee on finance, tax and customs policy on Thursday.
He added that Ukraine intends, first of all, to abolish duties on agricultural products from the EU.
The trade representative indicated that he sees the need to protect the Ukrainian market from goods from those countries with which there are no preferential terms of trade.
“The competition that we want to defend against is Turkey, China and other countries with which we do not have a preferential trade regime,” he said.
“Therefore, in order to work with the EU on a permanent customs-free trade regime, we want to take such a step. And in the context of our candidacy for the EU, this is very correct and appropriate,” Taras Kachka added.
“It is economically beneficial for us. The only industry where there is an economic imbalance is pork meat, but here it is more likely due to African swine fever, as well as cheese. We had a discussion on cheese whether the market should be protected. On the one hand, in In recent years, there has been an increase in cheese imports, mainly from Poland, but the total share of imported cheeses does not exceed 25%… There are no clear signs of harm for Ukrainian cheese producers,” Kachka explained.
