The Ukrainian parliament on May 31 approved a bill to cancel the obligatory registration of investments in a bid to reduce barriers to the flow of capital into the country.
It took the parliament a year, and 12 separate votes, to finally pass the bill. While Ukraine’s leaders frequently invite foreign investors to do business in the country, initiatives intended to improve the country’s investment climate often take months, or even years, to get approval in parliament.
According to the bill, foreign investments made in Ukraine will still qualify for the special conditions and guarantees granted in Ukraine to previously registered investments.
Among such conditions are a freeze on legislation relevant to the investment for 10 years after the investment is registered, compensation for losses caused by the actions of state agencies, the ability to repatriate an investment without a tax, and the right to transfer any profit made on the investment out of the country.
The law still has to be signed by the parliament speaker and the president.
MP Roman Semenukha, a lawmaker from the Samopomich Party, who co-authored the bill, told the Kyiv Post that one year to navigate the bill through parliament’s committees was quite good going.
“This Verkhovna Rada has registered nearly 4,000 bills,” he said. “So, unfortunately, that amount of time is normal for this parliament, although this law is quite simple.”
However, according to Semenukha, the law is unlikely to cause a boom in investment in Ukraine. Rather, it will form part of a much larger package of changes to the country’s legislation that will improve the investment climate, he said.
“But the experience of the modern parliament shows that you have to concentrate on simple concepts and, in this way, make changes step by step,” Semenukha said.
