Source: the Ministry of Economic Development
A “deregulation day”, which resulted in the abolition of more than 360 obsolete restrictive regulations, was held in the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. Furthermore, the Government significantly simplified the working environment for farmers and the telecom-market.
As the Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Hroysman said, the decisions discussed during the Cabinet of Ministers’ meeting greatly simplify the life for SMEs, minimize the risks of corruption and will save billions of hryvnas.
“The gross national product creates the entrepreneurship, which is a real sector, which we should not hinder, on the one hand, and on the other hand, should create the regulations that would enable us to be competitive. But not in a way as it sometimes happens, when the state creates artificial barriers and the business begins to found out the ways to get around. Any official can find fault with something whether it is a column, a business or an entrepreneur, because he has hundreds of thousands of regulations, some of them – since the Soviet Union, and then they begin to impose fines and create a pressure. We will destroy such regulations and keep those who don’t agree beyond the work of our Government,” the Prime Minister said.
For his part, the First Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine Maksim Nefedov said that a package of deregulatory initiatives that have a significant impact on the business development was prepared with the help of experts of the Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO), which was established with the support of the Ministry of Economy and the Group of Strategic Advisors on the Support for Reforms. “Some of the documents will be completely abolished, others – will be revised in such a way to better meet modern requirements. This is a hard and important work, and today we have made a significant contribution in it,” Maksim Nefedov said.
In particular, during the Government’s meeting, they decided to abolish 367 illegal and obsolete regulations. This decision will allow to significantly reduce administrative burdens and corruption risks in the administration of conflicting rules.
The government has also made a significant step towards deregulation in the telecom sector. An approval procedure for construction of mobile-communication base stations was greatly simplified (amendments to the Resolution of the CMU #461 of 13/04/2012). The procedure of putting these facilities into operation will be reduced by one month. In addition, the rules to define a rent rate for communications equipment have been clarified (amendments to the Resolution of the CMU #786 of 04/10/1995).
They has also approved a decision on submitting the initiative to abolish a minimum rate of paying for notary services at 1% to the President (Decree #762 of 10/07/1998). This restriction led to the fact that notaries have received huge payments even if they were ready to get less amounts of money. According to experts, a total volume of real estate transactions amounted to 55 billion hryvnas in 2014. This means that notaries received at least 550 million hryvnas as payments for their services (both private and state ones).
“So this mandatory minimum rate in the amount of 1% has a specific value for the state and investors. Its abolition will significantly reduce the costs when it comes to real estate purchase and sale contracts,” the First Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade said.
During the “deregulation day”, the Government has also initiated the abolition of a ban to mix different varieties of grains (amendments to the Order of the Ministry of Agricultural Policy #661 of 13/10/2008). Today, farmers have huge losses because of this unjustified ban. Its abolition will reduce logistical losses, increase the capacity of grain elevators and ports and, consequently, increase foreign exchange revenues to the budget. It is expected that the economic effect of this decision for the business will exceed 10 billion hryvnas by 2020.
Moreover, the Government has also improved a procedure of calculating a normative monetary value of land plots. A period to receive the information on the normative monetary value of land plots by applicants will be reduced to 1 day. A standard land lease agreement is also amended that will allow to reduce a number of lawsuits related to conflicts of laws on land lease (currently, 20 thousand per year).
The Cabinet of Ministers has also approved the rules for the development of oil and gas fields revised and adapted to modern needs that will greatly reduce the pressure from regulatory bodies and minimize corruption risks.
Also, revised license conditions for fire-fighting (reducing a number of works and services subject to licensing from 17 to 7) as well as license conditions on industrial catch of biological resources have been approved.
In addition, they decided that each ministry together with the Ministry of Justice and the State Regulatory Service (SRS) would conduct an inventory of obsolete laws and regulations and report on their abolition in a month.
It is expected that deregulation days, when packages of initiatives important for the business are considered, will be held in the Government on a regular basis.
[gview file=”https://en.brdo.com.ua/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2016/11/DECISIONS-FOR-BUSINESS.pdf”]