Ukraine, China Intensify Cooperation

KYIV, Ukraine, January 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Ukraine and China considerably deepened their cooperation throughout the past two years, noted the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych at the meeting with China's Minister of Defense Liang Guanglie in Kyiv. In particular, Ukraine - China cooperation involved agricultural sector, energy production, and bilateral trade.

In 2011, trade volume between China and Ukraine grew by nearly 35 percent, exceeding USD 10 billion. In the first six months of 2012, Ukraine increased import from China by almost 23 percent, informs china.mfa.gov.ua. Ore constitutes the major portion of the Ukrainian export to China, while import is prevailed by machines and electric devices.

Additionally, in the coming years China - the world's largest corn consumer - plans to buy approximately 3 million tons of Ukrainian corn annually. To help boost Ukraine's corn production, in July 2012, China provided a USD 3 billion loan for Ukraine's agricultural sector.

The loan is set to increase trade volume, raise productivity, and stimulate equipment modernization in Ukrainian agricultural sector. The money will finance Ukraine purchasing crop-protection agents, seeds, and equipment from China, land cultivation, as well as the construction of a plant for organic fertilizer processing and crop-protection agent production.

Notably, in 2012, Ukraine produced about 20 million tons of corn, more than half of which the Eastern European country was ready to sell to foreign buyers, stated Ukraine's agriculture minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk. In 2011, Ukraine became the third largest corn supplier in the world, being the second runner-up to the USA and Argentina.

Just as in trade, China looks to increase its investments to Ukraine. Main areas of Chinese investment include infrastructure (railway between Kyiv and the country's largest airport Boryspil), energy (combined heat and power plant construction), coal industry, agriculture, and car manufacturing.

Particularly, in December 2012, the state oil and gas company Naftogaz signed the USD 3.656 billion credit agreement with the state-owned China Development Bank to finance the program of substituting natural gas with locally produced coal. Another example is Ukrainian agricultural company Ukrlandfarming PLC, which in 2012 agreed upon USD 4 billion of investment from Chinese CAMC Engineering Co., Ltd.

In 2013, the volume of Chinese investment into Ukrainian agricultural projects is set to reach USD 600 million, informed the executive director of the China-Ukraine International Engineering Cooperation Association Chi Kin Fung.