But maybe everything will change in 2020.

Two months later, the moratorium on the sale of land adopted by the Verkhovna Rada in December 2017 will expire. It was installed before January 1, 2019, but it looks like it will be extended again.

First Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Maxim Martynyuk expressed doubts that the moratorium will be lifted in 2019: “Land reform has already begun, but you need to determine the rules on the game market. How, who sells to whom, how much land can be concentrated in one hand. And, of course, for what purposes. Already there is progress. ”

According to the official, the opportunity to cancel the moratorium will appear only in 2020, when the new parliament starts working. Recall that the parliamentary elections in Ukraine will be held at the end of October 2019.

The deputy minister says that Ukrainian farming is suffering because of the moratorium. According to him, agribusiness cannot develop dynamically when it is not sure about tomorrow.

“Most agribusiness sectors require long-term investments. Livestock, for example, goes to zero only after three years. Gardening is also poorly developed. Most farmers invest in what quickly pays off. Usually this is crop production. So farmers minimize risks in case something happens to the lease. Long-term industries are therefore not attractive. A moratorium is one of the reasons why farmers produce only 5% of agricultural GDP, because they can neither buy land nor get credit for it, ”Martyniuk says.

Recall that the moratorium began to operate in 2002 as a temporary measure, but it dragged on - parliamentarians extended it many times. In the spring of 2018, the World Bank published calculations of losses incurred by the Ukrainian economy due to the moratorium. The ban on the sale of land reduces the cost of renting land, unit owners lose $ 3 billion in rental payments each year. And the country's budget loses $ 60 million a year due to the low cost of land leases. And this calculation applies only to state lands registered in the Land Cadastre. According to experts, there are only 25% of these. The remaining 75% is 7.5 million hectares. The World Bank predicts that if Ukraine lifts the moratorium, its economy will grow by 0.6 - 1.6% per year, i.e., plus 0.7 - 1.5 billion dollars a year.