More than a thousand foreign companies operating in Ukraine cultivate 4-5% of farmland in the country, Minister for Development of Economy, Trade and Agriculture Tymofiy Mylovanov has said.
"Today, we know about some 1,000 or 1,300 companies whose creditors or owners are foreigners. They currently cultivate 4-5% of land. What are we going to do with them? Are we going to get them out?" Mylovanov said on the Freedom of Speech program on the ICTV television channel on Monday, September 23.
He stressed that these enterprises had invested in the country and created jobs.
"Are we going to get them out? That would be wrong. Our opponents are proposing that we let them work and not let others work. It's discrimination!" the minister said.
According to Mylovanov, such an option will not work. "There are those who came [to Ukraine] earlier and might be involved in the gray scheme (or maybe not in the gray one) but it won't work, because they will then be mediators. They will buy the land to sell it to others," he said.