Ukraine approves budget payments under minerals deal with US
Photo: Rksolana Pidlasa (Vitaliy Nosach, RBC-Ukraine)
The agreement with the United States on the use of Ukraine's natural resources provides for payments from the state budget. The Budget Committee approved the draft law, according to Roksolana Pidlasa, chairman of the Budget Committee of the Verkhovna Rada.
"The Budget Committee recommended adopting amendments to the Budget Code as a basis for the implementation of the minerals deal (No. 3256)," she wrote.
According to her, amendments to the Budget Code are needed to implement the provision on filling the US-Ukraine Investment Fund for Reconstruction.
Ukraine's contribution will consist of half of the funds received after the agreement comes into force from:
- royalties for the extraction of minerals (oil, gas, gas condensate, and everything specified in Annex A to the agreement) from new licenses,
- issuance of new special permits for minerals use,
- sales of the state-owned part of production under new production sharing agreements.
"This money will be credited to a special fund of the state budget and, by the decision of the main administrator (presumably the Ministry of Economy), will be transferred to the Reconstruction Fund," explained MP.
Pidlasa gave the following figures for Ukraine's contributions: about UAH 3 billion (USD 72 million) over 5 years.
"At least, if the Agreement had been signed in 2019, this is the amount that would have been transferred to the Fund as Ukraine's contribution by this time," she wrote.
Minerals deal
On May 1, Ukraine and the United States signed an agreement to establish the US-Ukraine Investment Fund. The document was signed by First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Yulia Svyrydenko and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
The Verkhovna Rada then ratified the intergovernmental agreement on May 8. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed the law on May 12, completing the ratification process.
Taras Kachka, Deputy Minister of Economy and Trade Representative of Ukraine, said that there are two additional technical agreements that the parties will sign later. However, they do not need to be ratified by the Verkhovna Rada.
In an interview with RBC-Ukraine, Svyrydenko said that the remaining agreements will be commercial and will not be signed by the government. The Agency for Support of Public-Private Partnerships will be the signatory from Ukraine. On behalf of the United States, it will be the International Development Finance Corporation (DFC).
