Photo from UNIAN
The relevant programs will be included in the 2020 national budget.
Ukraine's Finance Minister Oksana Markarova says the Ukrainian government is preparing a tool to reduce the cost of loans for farmers in the form of loan rate compensation.
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"We are preparing a tool that will help farmers get long-term and cheap loans. This will be a fund, which will include partly public funds and those of international partners. The fund will work with all Ukrainian banks to compensate for the loan rate," she told a Ukrainian TV channel on September 3.
According to the minister, the programs will be included in the 2020 national budget.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk said the government together with the National Bank should make lending in the hryvnia, Ukraine's national currency, much cheaper before the start of land reform next summer.
The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, reduced state funding of the agricultural sector in the national budget for 2019 by UAH 1 billion (US$39.6 million) from 2018, to UAH 5.7 billion ($225.7 million).
In February 2018, the Cabinet of Ministers allocated UAH 6.3 billion ($249.4 million) for the agricultural sector support program, including UAH 4 billion ($158.3 million) for livestock sector. In November 2018, the Cabinet increased subsidies to the major agricultural holdings in 2018 by another UAH 500 million ($19.8 million) to UAH 1.7 billion ($67.3 million).
In 2018, Ukrainian farmers and experts repeatedly asked the government to redistribute funds from state subsidies, in particular, to allocate funds to reduce the cost loans for farmers, as well as to simplify the mechanism for obtaining subsidies for small- and medium-sized enterprises.