OREANDA-NEWS. Starting from March 22, Ukraine introduces quotas on exports of sunflower oil and seeds to the amount of 300,000 and 1,000 tons respectively until July 1, 2008. This follows from a government resolution, which also approves the license issuance procedure.

According to the Economy Ministry, the step is aimed at securing sufficient supplies of sunflower oil on the domestic market and slowing down the growth of its prices.

UkrOliaProm Association believes that introduction of the quotas on sunflower oil exports will damage the industry. According to association's director general Stepan Kapshuk, over six months of the current marketing year, the industry enterprises have processed 2.4 million tons of sunflower seeds, producing 1.06 million tons of sunflower oil, including 860,000 tons already exported.

Today the sunflower remains total about 1.7 million tons, which may give 800,000 tons of oil, which exceeds the needs of Ukraine's domestic market by four times, Kapshuk noted.

During yesterday's meeting of the Council of Investors under the Cabinet of Ministers, Premier Yulia Tymoshenko said that the WTO rules allow introduction of such temporary restrictive measures on a transparent basis.

This marketing year Ukraine plans to produce about 1.8 million tons of sunflower oil. The domestic consumption of sunflower oil in Ukraine is estimated at 0.5-0.6 million tons.