The FINANCIAL — Kyiv, May 20th, 2011 – The American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine’s Logistics & Transportation Committee believes that the Draft Law # 0881 “On Sea Ports of Ukraine ” cannot be recommended for adoption by the Parliament and supports the development of a new draft law that shall provide for the conditions of private investments attraction into the sea port industry of Ukraine. The Draft Law # 0881 “On Sea Ports” does not reflect the sector’s needs in general and does not resolve the outstanding issues specified in the President Yanukovych’s Economic Reforms Program with respect to further development of transport infrastructure.
As ACC remarks, In particular, a law on sea ports should provide for:
- Clear instruments and mechanisms for attraction of private investments into the sea port sector as well as for the guarantees of such investors’ rights and mechanisms of compensation for private investments into the port infrastructure facilities;
- Possibility to lease, concession and other Public Private Partnership (PPP) activities on the territory of sea ports as provided by Laws of Ukraine (the Law “On PPP” and the Law “On Concession”);
- Development of efficient port management model that supports fair competition and prevents the creation of unjustified advantages for particular subjects of business activities;
- Flexible approach to forming of tariff policy and port charges that increase the freight turnover in Ukrainian ports.
On May 18th the American Chamber of Commerce conducted a Joint Logistics & Transportation and Legal Committees Meeting devoted to the discussion of sea ports infrastructure development in Ukraine and perspectives of adoption of a law on sea ports within the framework of the Public-Private Partnership implementation.
As this Meeting’s aim was to establish a dialogue between governmental authorities, private investors and representatives of sea logistics/shipping industry, among the participants were representatives of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Sea Trade Port Authorities as well as American Chamber of Commerce member companies. Starting the meeting, Ms. Victoria Papenkova, Senior Lawyer, CMS Cameron McKenna LLC, Chamber Logistics & Transportation Committee Secretary, delivered a presentation titled “Draft Law “On Sea Ports” and Incorporation of Priv ate Investors’ Interests” that outlined the most problematic issues related to the current situation in sea ports in Ukraine and the necessity to attract the private investments into the industry. She emphasized inconsistence of the Draft Law provisions with the norms and rules of applicable Ukrainian legislation, including the Law of Ukraine "On PPP" and "On Concession".
The Chamber invited Ms. Lina Tarasova, Deputy Director of the Department of State Property, Ministry of Infrastructure, to inform the participants on activities of the Working Group on preparation of normative acts regarding use of port infrastructure facilities that are not subject to privatization by private investors. As a result, American Chamber of Commerce Logistics & Transportation Committee decided to address Ministry of Infrastructure with a request to include the Committee Leadership into the Working Group under the Ministry.
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