The Ukrainian Parliament has further supported the development of RES by granting a VAT exemption for imports of certain wind and solar equipment, as well as simplifying the land use requirements for certain land categories.

The respective amendments have been introduced by the Law "On amendments to the Tax Code of Ukraine and other legislative acts of Ukraine as regards improvement of administration and revision of rates for certain taxes and duties" No 2628-VIII dated 23.11.2018 (the "Law"), published on 12 December 2018 and effective from 1 January 2019.

The Law provides that until 31 December 2022 the importation of wind power units, PV cells, certain liquid dielectric transformers and static convertors is exempt from VAT. For the exemption to be applied, the equipment should fall under the following subcategories of the Ukrainian customs tariff: 8502 31 00 00, 8541 40 90 00, 8504 23 00 00, and/or 8504 40 88 00. From a practical perspective, the classification may be confirmed by a prior customs decision (which is analogous to an EU Binding Tariff Information decision).

Another important development introduced by the Law is that RES developers will not be required to change the land designation of land plots used for RES projects, in cases when the land is within an industrial, transport, telecommunications or defence category.

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