Ukrainian Government to Start Blockchain Land Registry Trial in October

The authorities of Ukraine has revealed plans to trial a land registry system underpinned by blockchain.

In a authorities assembly on Wednesday, Maksym Martyniuk, First Deputy Minister of Agricultural Policy and Food, unveiled the pilot venture, deliberate to begin in October. According to local media stories, the scheme will introduce blockchain to the Eastern European nation’s State Land Cadastre and digitize auctions for leases of state land.

The information follows Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman’s latest dedication to maintain auctions for all state land leases going ahead – a transfer aimed to enhance competitors, increase the native economic system and cut back illicit actions. Warning of potential “criminal punishment” for non-compliance with the coverage, the Prime Minister stated on the time:

“Any land that’s supplied should be supplied at auctions.”

About 71% of Ukrainian territory (42.7 million hectares) falls beneath the class of agricultural land. Over 10 million hectares of this is owned by the state, comprising round 25% of the whole quantity of agricultural land.

According to a 2015 research project financed by the World Bank and launched in cooperation with the Ministry of Agricultural Policy of Ukraine, the State Land Cadaster Center and a variety of state authorities, the present state of land administration in Ukraine is alarming:

Public land registration is significantly decrease than for personal property (24% vs 71%), decreasing transparency and permitting for illicit actions.
The stage of lease cost for agricultural land is without doubt one of the lowest in Europe and the Russian Commonwealth (about $37 in 2015), negatively affecting the incomes of rural landowners and inflicting inefficient use of land assets.
The land market may be very depressed, primarily due to the shortage of economic devices and the complexities of utilizing land as collateral. The primary means of transferring property rights to agricultural land is by way of leases, the place there’s a huge “shadow market.”
The variety of land taxpayers (about 7.three million) is far decrease than the variety of personal landowners and land customers.

Ukraine isn’t the primary nation to think about using blockchain in the land registry course of. In March this 12 months, Sweden’s land registry authority launched a trial for recording property offers. And, in May, the UK Land Registry detailed its plans for a so-called ‘Digital Street’, itemizing blockchain expertise as one of many underlying applied sciences for the trial.