KYIV. March 31 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukrainian business jointly with the Federation of Employers of Ukraine wants to ask the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to start negotiations on amendments to the Ukraine-EU Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA).
Exporters believe that the Cabinet can and should be an official negotiator with the European Commission in Brussels in matters involving changes to conditions of Ukraine’s trade with the EU member countries. Ukrainian business is ready to hand over the address with conclusions and proposals to the new government.
“We have decided to initiate an address to the government and start these talks. We will demand that this become a public directive from the Cabinet,” Director General of the Federation of Employers Ruslan Illichev said in Kyiv on Wednesday.
The federation will insist on increasing the quotas for supplies of Ukrainian products to the EU market. The corn flour quotas could be increased by 12 times, the wheat quotas could be doubled, the nine-fold rise could be made for grape juice, the 15-fold rise for sugar. The tomato quotas could be tripled, flour quotas could be doubled. The poultry quotas could be increased by six times and the quotas for apple juice could be eliminated.
“We do not want to take the quotas from European producers. We want the EU during the revision of imports quotas redistributes them in favor of Ukraine: to reduce for some countries and increase for other countries,” Illichev said.
The federation has picked out four substantial issues for Ukrainian exporters: the revision of the imports quotas on Ukrainian goods outlined in the DCFTA; the reduction of imports duties on Ukrainian engineering products, particularly, automobile industry and electric equipment; the extension of the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) and the acceleration of the procedure for bilateral arranging the state veterinary and biosecurity control system.
