KIEV, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank (WB) supports farmland reform in Ukraine, which envisages the cancellation of the country's ban on the farmland trade, a senior official at the bank said on Thursday.
"According to our estimates, this can give an impetus to the development of the country," Satu Kahkonen, the bank's country director for Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine, said at the Ukrainian Financial Forum in the southern city of Odessa.
The WB hopes that the Ukrainian authorities will take necessary steps to launch the reform by the end of November, Kahkonen added.
The liberalization of the land market is a highly controversial issue in Ukraine. Its supporters claim that the ban limits the rights of about 6.9 million Ukraine's land plot owners to dispose of their property.
Meanwhile, critics claim that small landowners may lose their plots once the ban is lifted as big agricultural firms may manage to take away their farmland.
The Ukrainian Agriculture Ministry estimated the market value of Ukraine's farmland of 42 million hectares, of which 32 million hectares are arable, at nearly 100 billion U.S. dollars.
In 2001, Ukraine adopted a land code and reviving a ban on farmland trade, which was first imposed in 1992. Since 2001, the Ukrainian authorities has been prohibited the country's land owners from selling their plots.
The International Monetary Fund also has recommended Ukraine lift the ban to attract additional funds to the state budget, but Ukrainian lawmakers rejected the idea, worried Ukraine's small landowners may lose their plots due to corruption. Enditem
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