28 Apr 2022 11:28

Decision to lift all EU customs duties for Ukraine will help Europeans - Zelensky

KYIV. April 28 (Interfax-Ukraine) - The European Commission's decision to lift all of the European Union's customs duties and quotas on Ukrainian exports will help Europeans, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

The European Commission (EC) agreed to suspend all customs duties and quotas on goods from Ukraine for one year and to suspend anti-dumping tariffs, Zelensky said.

"I am personally grateful to [European Commission President] Ursula von der Leyen and all of our European friends for this step. Today, it will allow us to preserve our economic activity and our national production as much as possible. But one should look at this decision not only in the Ukrainian context. A sufficient volume of the export of our products delivered to European and global markets will be an important anti-crisis tool," Zelensky said in a video address on Wednesday evening.

"Ukrainian export will help stabilize markets. It will benefit not only us, but also all Europeans," he said.

The EC stated on Wednesday that it has proposed a one-year suspension on import duties on all Ukrainian exports to the European Union.

"I have been in discussions with President Zelensky on ways of supporting the economy, beyond the macro-financial assistance and grants we are providing. We both agree on the critical importance of a quick and broad import duty suspension to boost Ukraine's economy," EC President Ursula von der Leyen was quoted in the statement as saying.

Such suspension would "greatly facilitate the export of Ukrainian industrial and agricultural goods to the EU," she said, promising further economic assistance for Ukraine.

The EC proposal also involves a one-year suspension of all EU anti-dumping and safeguard measures effective for Ukrainian steel exports. This is necessary to increase Ukraine's exports to the EU and to alleviate the struggles for Ukrainian producers and exporters in the current domestic situation.

"The EU has never before delivered such trade liberalization measures, which are unprecedented in their scale: granting Ukraine zero tariff, zero quota access to the EU market," EC Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said.

Given the current difficult situation in Ukraine, the EU wants to do everything possible to help the country "maintain its trade position with the rest of the world and further deepen its trade relations with the EU."

Brussels also said that it was taking steps to ease land transportation of goods to facilitate the export of Ukrainian goods. The EC has already started to liberalize conditions for Ukrainian truck drivers who carry goods into the EU and to make it easier to use the EU infrastructure to transit the Ukrainian goods bound for third countries.