Newly created State Land Bank planning to credit agrarian workers under 10% annual - expert
2012-10-04 14:41:40
The banks existing in Ukraine now issue credits under 24% annual to agrarian workers. This is too much. In addition, the state allocates great funds from the state budget for partial repayment of interest rates on those credits. And this is at the time that peasants in the whole world receive credits maximum at 4-5% annual.
Director of the Finance and Credit Policy of the Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry of Ukraine Bahrat Ahidzhanov has said about this, commenting on the process of discussion of the government's intention to create the state-owned Land Bank, the UKRINFORM correspondent reports.
“Representatives of foreign banks, who are working with us, say that such high rate at 24% is caused by the fact that they lay down Ukraine's default risks in this rate. At the same time, a risk of non-fulfillment of obligations is estimated by them at 8-10%. We will not lay down this into the cost of resources. The cost of every credit will be made up of the credit itself and the cost of operating expenses. We calculated that it will be up to 10%,” the agency representative noted.
On the backdrop of different opinions about the Land Bank perspectives, there is the fear that with adoption of a relevant bill (No. 11202), the government will receive a right to assign all farm lands to the bank's authorized capital. Now, the lands are operated by district state administrations. So, if they are handed over to the Land Bank, district administrations will be deprived of the financial resource, received from tenants of those lands.
“I would like to stress,” the departmental head noted “that the draft law only proposes the government to assign those lands to authorized capital, but not obliges. In addition, currently, district state administrations do not dispose of the “rental funds” coming to the state budget. They can come to regions later in the form of inter-budget transfers. At the same time, irrespective of the fact in what region they were collected.”
Continuing the theme of rental payments for state farm lands, Ahidzhanov believes that more questions arises on the part of business. For instance, “What will be with land lease agreements, when lands are taken into the long-term use?” “I think there should be succession. And if someone reduced rental prices than, naturally, they should be revised. For instance, in compliance with a coefficient 1.76 of the normative estimated monetary value of lands, as it was established for all land tenants of all farm lands since the beginning of this year,” he is convinced.
As concerns a candidature for a post of head of the future Land Bank, there is no such a candidature, since a procedure for appointment to this position is rather long. First, the President, the Cabinet and the Verkhovna Rada should appoint 15 members of the bank's Supervision Board. And only following that, they could appoint the Board Chairman, the official summed up.