KYIV, November 15 – Ukraine may cancel all tolling operations involving its non-ferrous metals in a bid to boost profits of local firms and stop huge illegal sales abroad, the daily Kievskie Vedomosty newspaper reported on Wednesday. The report said parliament might adopt a series of amendments to the current rules on exports of non-ferrous metals to stop tolling, an arrangement where the owner of a raw material sends it to a processor, and pays for the transaction with a percentage of the finished goods.
“We are sure that we must ban all tolling schemes because these deals are a furtive means of exporting non-ferrous scrap illegally,” the paper quoted parliamentary deputy Serhiy Matviyenko, the author of the amendments, as saying.
He said parliament also needed to limit the number of companies allowed licenses to process scrap.
Ukraine banned exports of all unprocessed non-ferrous scrap metal last June, and officials said then they hoped the ban would stop largely uncontrolled exports of aluminum and copper scrap to neighboring Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany.
The law also ordered exporters to obtain quality certificates before selling processed scrap and pure non-ferrous metals abroad.
But certified producers have complained that despite last year’s ban and new export rules, many small local firms still continue exporting scrap and pure metals under the guise of various tolling schemes. Official data show that Ukraine exported 76,000 tons of processed copper scrap and 36,000 tons of aluminum scrap in 1999. Last year’s exports of finished metal reached 300,000 tons of aluminum and 120,000 tons of copper.
The paper also said tolling operations dominated exports of finished non-ferrous metal last year, but that only a small part of the metal had returned to Ukraine.
The parliamentary gazette Holos Ukrainy said on Tuesday exports of processed non-ferrous scrap totaled 45,000 tons of copper and 39,000 tons of aluminum so far this year.
But it said sales of semi-processed aluminum increased by 50,000 tons compared to the same period a year ago.
The paper also said that Ukraine, which has no deposits of copper of its own, or bauxite to produce aluminum, would face a deficit of primary non-ferrous metals due to continued tolling operations.
