Ukraine, Israel set to sign free trade deal next year

Ukraine and Israel are planning to sign a free trade agreement (FTA) next year, visiting Israeli Parliament Speaker Yuli-Yoel Edelstein said here Thursday.

"I expect that the FTA between Ukraine and Israel will be launched in 2017," Edelstein, speaker of the Knesset, told a cultural-economic forum in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.

The work to remove final obstacles for signing the deal is underway, Edelstein said, voicing his hope that Israel's government bodies will soon give a green light to the preferential trade regime with Ukraine.

Ukraine and Israel began their FTA talks in 2013, but the process was suspended over the crisis in the East European country. Last year, the negotiations were resumed.

In the first half of 2016, the overall trade turnover between Ukraine and Israel fell 3.7 percent year-on-year to 430.3 million U.S. dollars.