(Kyi Post staff) – Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov threw his weight behind the privatization of farmland, including sale to foreign investors, in a bid to improve productivity.
Azarov’s comments in a Jan. 6 interview with news agency Interfax-Ukraine came after President Viktor Yanukovych’s top aide Serhiy Lyovochkin said in December that the moratorium on land sales could be lifted in 2011.
“Ukraine is facing a situation in which it is unable to provide itself with foodstuffs,” Azarov told Interfax-Ukraine.
“Who could have thought that we’d see the day when Ukraine had to buy and import meat? Who could have seriously thought about that 20 years ago?”
Ukraine is facing a situation in which it is unable to provide itself with foodstuffs.”
– Mykola Azarov, prime minister of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian government last year imposed limits on grain exports in an effort to prevent a rise in food prices.
Ukraine, historically referred to as the “Breadbasket of Europe,” is blessed with rich agricultural soil and good weather for farming.
But Azarov said huge investment is needed to modernize out-of-date farming technologies, and in turn boost the nation’s economy.
The prime minister said the government’s aim was to turn land into “an investment resource” over the next two years. Striking a more protectionist note, however, Azarov said the amount of land that foreigners can acquire may be limited by new legislation.
“How do we prevent somebody buying our land cheap and so on? Let’s say this issue is to be addressed to lawmakers. All these models could be created to make it quite natural for there to be a limitation on foreign citizens’ rights to buy, let me stress again, our land on a large scale,” he said.
