Land prices in Ukraine may triple – World Bank

The World Bank predicts that land prices in Ukraine may triple to US$3,000-3,500 per hectare from current $1,000-1,500 in case the moratorium on farmland sale is lifted.

"Businesses are ready to pay more for certainty and the opportunity to avoid investment risks. Technical work to lift the moratorium in Ukraine has actually been completed," the Ekonomichna Pravda online newspaper quoted World Bank Director for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova Satu Kahkonen as saying in an interview with Bloomberg.

The World Bank is ready to provide more financial assistance to Ukraine in this connection, she said.

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According to Bloomberg, Ukrainian landowners have Europe's lowest land rent rates, while the quality of the Ukrainian soil is one of the world's best.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the moratorium on farmland sale in Ukraine was extended until 2019.

A memorandum with the International Monetary Fund states that Ukraine originally planned to adopt by the end of May 2017 a law regulating agricultural land sale, as well as to launch farmland sale from 2018 after the end of the moratorium.

According to the land reform proposed by the government, only Ukrainian citizens could be eligible to purchase land after the moratorium expires. However, the maximum size of a plot per citizen shall not exceed 200 hectares.

At the same time, an ad hoc group under the Ministry of Agrarian Policy does not rule out the possibility of selling land plots to small farms, subject to a number of restrictions.

The farmland sale moratorium has been effective in Ukraine since 2001.

Experts and the public were divided on the issue of lifting the ban on farmland sale. Some believe that the extension of the moratorium creates a shadow land market, while others argue that the abolition of the moratorium will affect villagers and facilitate land acquisitions by foreign companies.