Garden centers will be open again in Ukraine
Recently, the aggravating situation with COVID-19 in Ukraine forced the Ukrainian government to introduce more strict limitations for the economic activities in the areas affected by the virus. These rules were developed within the short term and are aimed to respond to increased number of contaminations and to ensure epidemiology safety. According to these rules, shops that sell products of first necessity, foods, newspapers, seeds, animal feed are open for visitors, but clothing shops, tableware shops or cinemas would be closed or working only online.
Soon the company Dekoplant, the Dutch-Ukrainian producer of rose planting material discovered, that the recently introduced rules would mean closing all the garden centers in the region – just amid the planting season. Such a regulation would ruin all the supply of their rootstocks, so carefully grown during the last two years. Planting material was all taken out from storage, packed to be sent to the shops. It could not be stored. And this would relate not only to the products grown by the company Dekoplant. All the rootstocks and young trees supplied by the nurseries would be wasted laying in the closed garden centers, and the small farmers would not be able to buy the good planting material.
The company Dekoplant, the Dutch Nursery Kornelis and the Ukrainian Association of Planting Material approached the Agricultural counsellor of the Netherlands Embassy. They were joined by the supplier of berry planting material Fresh Forward, the company with Dutch origin, and the Association of Landscape Designers of Ukraine.
It was clear that the situation harmed the Dutch investors in Ukraine and had negative impact on the Ukrainian sector. So, the Dutch Embassy in Ukraine reached for support from the Ukraine Invest, the Ukrainian Investment Promotion Office, and the Business Ombudsman Office in Ukraine. All together they addressed the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, and the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine to explain that exclusion of sales of planting materials from the list of economic activities that are allowed during quarantine, will cause more harm than good.
On April 7, this problem with sales of planting material was discussed at the special meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers, and they took the decision to include sales of planting materials to the economic activities that are allowed in the quarantine zone. This is an excellent example of coordinated actions of the institutions supporting foreign investors and Ukrainian businesses which led to positive result.
