Agricultural Minister Oleksiy Pavlenko
A program worth UAH 300 million to support agricultural producers envisaged by the state budget will allow farmers to take five-year interest-free loans, according to a statement by Agricultural Minister Oleksiy Pavlenko.
"The Law of Ukraine on the state budget for 2015 includes funding for several programs,” Pavlenko said.
“In particular, UAH 54 million is available for the purchase of equipment through NJSC Ukragroleasing, UAH 25.6 million for loans to farmers, and financial support in the agricultural sector of UAH 300 million, which [among other things] involves subsidizing interest rates on loans taken for the purchase of agricultural machinery," the minister said.
Pavlenko said demand for agricultural machinery and spare parts in Ukraine is high, but the financial means of farmers have declined significantly against the backdrop of a sharp devaluation of the national currency.
The cost of imported equipment, according to the minister, has tripled, while the value of domestic machinery that also uses imported parts has doubled. Nevertheless, the Agricultural Ministry predicts that in the second half of 2015 there will be an increase in sales of agricultural machinery.
As UNIAN reported earlier, on March 2 the Verkhovna Rada adopted amendments to the Law on State Budget for 2015, allocating an additional UAH 550 million to support the Ukrainian agro-industrial complex. Later, the deputy head of the Agricultural Ministry Volodymyr Lapa said that the ministry intended to provide UAH 300 million envisaged by the Law on State Budget for 2015 to make cheap loans available mainly to small- and medium-sized farming businesses.
According to the Agricultural Ministry, imports of agricultural machinery in 2014 amounted to $559 million, which is almost half that in 2013. In particular, in 2014 a total of 16,900 tractors were imported at a total cost of $207.5 million, along with 882 harvesters together worth $91 million.