Ukraine and Egypt may decide to start negotiations on a free trade area (FTA) this fall, said Deputy Minister of Economy and Trade Representative of Ukraine Taras Kachka.
“We are negotiating with Egypt, but soon the conversation fades. We hope that this fall we will hold an intergovernmental commission, and I hope we will take a decision to start negotiations,” Kachka said during the Kyiv International Economic Forum in Kyiv on Friday.
He also indicated that Ukraine and Indonesia have begun studying potential FTA talks.
The free trade area (FTA) between Ukraine and Israel will take effect on January 1, 2021, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
“This is a new level of relations between the countries and the ‘green light’ to the growth of Ukraine’s exports, closer cooperation in the fields of high-tech, engineering, investment. Great news, Benjamin Netanyahu [Prime Minister of Israel],” he wrote on his Twitter on Tuesday.
First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv has proposed to Vice-Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China Liu He to commence joint consultations about the possible creation of a free trade area (FTA). “I have offered Vice-Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China Liu He to start joint Ukrainian-Chinese consultations on the prerequisites for creating a Ukraine-China free trade area,” he wrote on his Facebook page, following a meeting with Liu He during his working visit to Beijing (China) on Thursday.
According to a posting on the website of the Economic Development and Trade Ministry, after a long interruption in the work of the intergovernmental commission on cooperation between Ukraine and China, its activities were resumed, which favored increased trade and cooperation between enterprises of the two countries. “However, this volume of trade does not correspond to the existing potential. In the next five years, we can increase trade turnover to $20 billion a year,” the ministry said, citing Kubiv as saying.
As reported, trade turnover between Ukraine and China in January-August 2018, compared with the same period last year, grew by 21%, to $5.8 billion.
