The World Bank will loan $200 million to help Ukraine to use 21st-century technology to create a fair and transparent farmland market

The World Bank will loan $200 million to help Ukraine to use 21st-century technology to create a fair and transparent farmland market. The loan will pay for satellite mapping of Ukraine, creation of a publicly accessible State Agrarian Register, and creation of a publicly registered inventory of state-owned farmland, about one-third of Ukraine’s 32 million hectares. The loan will also pay for an automated trigger system to alert landowners to changes in their properties on the Zemkadastr, or Land Cadaster. Designed to promote private investment in farming, the loan agreement was signed Tuesday by Finance Minister Oksana Markarova and World Bank regional director Satu Kahkonen. The World Bank estimates that the creation of a private land market will generate up to $1 billion in additional annual economic activity.