Denys Bashlyk: Despite the war, land reform is working, the land is being sold land invested in

The land market has been operating for two years now, land reform has been implemented, and electronic land auctions have been launched. Despite the war, the demand for land is growing.

Denys Bashlyk, Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, made the relevant statement at a briefing at the Media Center Ukraine – Ukrinform.  

“Analyzing the first year, about 66 thousand transactions on the sale and purchase of land plots that were previously under a moratorium have been conducted. The total area is about 153 thousand hectares. In 2022 the first year of the reform, before a full-scale war outbreak, the number of sales contracts amounted to 53 thousand. Having land registries processing these 53 thousand land deals in most regions of Ukraine has not functioned properly for almost half a year, meaning that the market was completely frozen,” he said.

At the same time, Denys Bashlyk noted that, according to the analysis, 13 thousand land sale and purchase transactions have already been concluded in the first four months of 2023. The average price has increased by 20%.

“It is worthwhile to understand that the demand was the same as in 2021, and the trend remains upward. In fact, in my opinion, this is one of the indicators that the vast majority of people believe in the war in Ukraine to end sooner, having no fear not only to buy land but also to invest in,” he added.

In addition, the deputy minister emphasized that not only the demand for land is growing, but the price as well. 

“The price analysis shows that, for example, Lviv Oblast’s average hectare price is currently UAH 162 thousand. It is UAH 148 thousand in the Kyiv Oblast, respectively. I want to remind you that at the time of land reform adoption, these were completely different figures. For example, in the Kyiv Oblast, it was 48 thousand hryvnias, and in the Lviv region, it was 51 thousand hryvnias. And without considering the inflation factor, we all understand this, we still see, even in conventional units, that growth continues,” said Denys Bashlyk.

In his turn, Sergii But, CEO at Prozorro.Sale emphasized that since the first land auctions were launched in 2021, more than UAH 1.2 billion in closed deals have been made so far.

“That is, this is the income, the cash flow that the sellers and lessors of land plots have received during this time. A significant part of these land deals is actually communal land plots. That is, we have UAH 1.2 billion in revenues through electronic land auctions.”

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