Washington DC, USA – February 17, 2006.   On February 17, 2006 USA granted Ukraine a market economy status. According to the decision, Ukraine is considered a country with a market economy starting from February 1, 2006. Previously the decision has been expected on January 23, 2006, however this term has been extended. This might have been the result of the recent appointment of David Spooner as Assistant Secretary for Import Administration of the US Department of Commerce, who needed extra time to assess the situation. Ukraine’s market economy status became a reality due to the common efforts of the Ukrainian Government, leading Ukrainian metallurgical enterprises, as well as the law firms.

Ministry of economy of Ukraine, Ministry of industrial policy, Ministry of foreign affairs of Ukraine, Embassy of Ukraine in the USA provided an overall support for making the decision concerning market economy status. However, this would have been quite difficult without the support of the Ukrainian enterprises, since the Ukrainian government did not possess enough funds to engage the lawyers, that is obligatory in the USA regarding such types of questions. The funding has been provided by the Ukrainian Association of Ferrous Metallurgy Enterprises (UkrMet) headed by its Director General Dmytry Bilokurov. The Association organized the leading Ukrainian enterprises to finance this work. Magister & Partners, attorneys-at-law, acted as legal advisors to the Ukrainian side and Wilmer Hale to the American side in the issue on granting a market economy status to Ukraine.

Granting Ukraine a status of   a country with the market economy will have a positive effect on all Ukrainian companies, which conduct foreign economic activity in the USA. In the first instance, it will make the imposition of the antidumping measures related to the Ukrainian products more difficult and the process of carrying out the investigations more transparent. Moreover, the Ukrainian enterprises will receive an opportunity to review the existing antidumping measures on their products. Finally, the other countries, which currently do not consider Ukraine as a market economy country, i.e. Mexico, will probably change their opinion regarding this question.