Agricultural Minister: Ukraine will Export 20-21 Million Tons of Grain

KYIV, Ukraine, July 30, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Ukraine will be able to export 20-21 million tons of grain this marketing year, said the Ukrainian Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Mykola Prysyazhnyuk. This amount, he said, was based on 10 million tons of carry-over stock of grain from last year and this year's forecasted crop of 45 - 46 million tons.

So far, Ukraine harvested 12.1 million tons of wheat, 5.5 million tons of barley, and 336 thousand tons of rye, reported Prysyazhnyuk.

The aim for Ukraine is to double its agricultural production, said the Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov on July 26. The plan is to increase grain production to 80 - 100 million tons a year, and vegetables - to 30 - 40 million tons a year and a lot of it will depend on investments, he said. According to Ukrainian PM, the last year's growth rate of investment in agriculture has been much higher than that in other industries; investment in agriculture in 2011 compared with 2010 increased by 7.2 times.

Notably, in July of 2012 the People's Republic of China allocated the USD 3 billion loan for a set of projects in Ukraine's agricultural sector. The bilateral cooperation included Ukraine purchasing crop-protection agents, seeds, and equipment from China, land cultivation, construction of a plant for organic fertilizer processing and crop-protection agents production, as well as selling grain to China. The loan was issued for 15 years with annual interest rate of six percent.

In 2011, Ukraine joined world's top three grain exporters. A year prior - in 2010 - Ukraine landed fourth on the list of leading grain exporters, following the USA, the EU, and Canada. Moreover, Ukraine currently ranks number one in global barley exports. Additionally, Ukraine became the third largest corn supplier in the world in 2011, surpassing Brazil and being the second runner-up to the USA and Argentina.

Top grain customers of Ukraine are Armenia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Liberia, Portugal, Spain, and many others. In April of 2012, Ukraine and Jordan agreed that Ukraine would construct elevator facilities in Jordan. They are set to increase grain supply from Ukraine to Jordan, as well as to several neighboring states.