Union of dairy enterprises believes that approved in the first reading law in draft on changes in payment framework of milk processors is harmful.

On May 22, Verkhovna Rada adopted as basis law in draft N10456 thus shortening term for the second reading. According to this document milk will be added to list of objects of state price regulation. Also there are changes in payments of processors to milk suppliers. Previously processors had to pay during 7 business days after sales of milk products, but according to law in draft processors will have to pay within 7 business days from the date of obtaining milk.

"In our opinion, the proposed rules in the bill will even more complicate and worsen the state of the milk and dairy products market, and its actors - producers, processors and distributors," - wrote in a letter dairy producers to the head of the Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Lytvyn. The text of this letter is available on the website of the Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation.

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By the conviction of the Union of dairy enterprises, the adoption of the law in present form "will lead to leaching (deficit) of working capital from processing plants and will force them to borrow too expensive credit resources". This, in its turn, will lead to higher prices for dairy products, reduce demand and increase inflation in the country.

Also, processors point out that, in addition to mentioned above arguments, proposed in the draft the term "milk has a very broad interpretation (raw milk, whole milk, processed milk, condensed milk, drinking milk, sheep milk, goat milk, soy milk, etc.) that in the process of law adoption can lead to unclear (double) interpretation and appearance of corruption.

In their opinion, it would be logical to include in the list of objects of state price regulation not "milk", but "whole cow milk" and "dairy products", so that responsibility for payments will be equal for both trader and processing enterprises.

Latifundist