The Cabinet of Ministers intends to impose an additional fee on imports

The Cabinet of Ministers intends to develop a draft law on the introduction of a 10% fee for the purchase of all imported goods and services. The Deputy Head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, Deputy from the Golos faction Yaroslav Zheleznyak, informed about it on Telegram.

At the same time, the deputy notes that this is not about additional import duties.

“The introduction of a 10% fee on foreign exchange transactions for the purchase of all imported goods and services was chosen, but not the concept of additional import duties (which is difficult to administer),” he said.

According to government calculations, this should reduce the demand for imported goods and pressure on the hryvnia.

It is expected that the Cabinet of Ministers will submit the bill for consideration in the coming weeks.

As GMK Center wrote earlier, the balance of foreign exchange interventions of the National Bank of Ukraine in July reached $1.2 billion – it is the lowest figure since the beginning of the war. In addition, compared with the record June ($3.9 billion), the burning of gold and foreign exchange reserves decreased by 3.5 times.

The deficit of the consolidated balance of Ukraine’s payments in June 2022 reached $2.1 billion, while in June 2021 the surplus amounted to UAH 753 million.

Decision to weaken the official hryvnia exchange rate against the US dollar by 25% – to UAH 36.5686 per dollar – NBU accepted on July 21. The National Bank considered that the correction of the exchange rate will increase the inflow and sale of foreign exchange revenue by exporters.