According to the results of January-March 2017, Ukraine exported agri-food products worth of $4.6 billion. This is $1.3 billion more, which is almost 40% higher compared to the same period a year earlier.
It has been reported by ProAgro with a reference to Institute of Agrarian Economics (IAE).
According to the Deputy Director of the IAE Nikolai Pugachev, the main markets for Ukrainian agro products were such regions as: the countries of Asia, Africa and the EU. In total, they account for about 90% of the cost of Ukrainian agricultural products exports.
It is noted that Asian countries keep the position of the main importer of Ukrainian domestic agro products. In January-March 2017 they purchased Ukrainian food products worth of $2 billion. The share of Asia for this period was 43.5% of the total export of Ukrainian agricultural products.
More than a quarter of the domestic export of agricultural products (28.3%) accounts for the European Union countries. In January-March 2017, they purchased Ukrainian food products worth of $1.3 billion. Exports to Africa amounted to $0.8 billion or 17.4% of the total exports of agricultural products.
“A characteristic feature of the first quarter of 2017 was an increase in the supply of Ukrainian agri-food products to all major regions with exports to the Asian and African countries growing the most”, – Nikolai Pugachev said.
In addition, there was a revival of exports of domestic agricultural products to the CIS countries, which in recent years showed a steady decline in trade relations. Countries of this region in January-March 2017 imported Ukrainian food products worth of $0.3 billion, which amounted to 6.5% of the total exports of agricultural products.
According to the results of the first quarter of 2017, the rating of the countries importing domestic agro products was headed by India, which bought Ukrainian food products worth of $683 million. Egypt occupied the second place, which imported agricultural products from Ukraine worth of $455 million.
Ukrainian exporters also received significant revenues from such countries as: Spain ($297 million), Iran ($255 million), Italy ($228 million), Turkey ($226 million) and the Netherlands ($226 million). These seven countries provided more than 50% of the proceeds from the export of agricultural products in the first quarter of 2017.
Grain crops (mainly due to corn and wheat), oilseeds (primarily soybeans), vegetable oil (mainly sunflower) and food products remain the determining positions in the commodity structure of domestic agri-food exports. Their total share exceeds 90% in agrarian exports.
For all the above-mentioned product groups, the growth of export earnings related to January-March 2016 was recorded. The largest shares in the total value of Ukrainian grain purchases were showed by Egypt (16.2%), India (11%), Spain (9.7%), the Netherlands (7.6%), Iran (6,8%), Italy (6.8%) and Israel (5.5%). Together with Tunisia and South Korea, these countries account for more than 70% of the cost of our grain exports to the foreign markets.
Oilseeds produced the largest revenues from exports to Turkey (26.0%), Iran (22.1%), Egypt (15.0%), Israel (5.7%), Italy (5.2%) and Portugal 4.6%), which together amounted to more than 75% of exports. The dominant buyer of fats and oils of Ukrainian origin is traditionally occupied by India with a share of 37.2%. Other major importing countries are lagging behind – China (9.6%), Spain (7.4%), the Netherlands (4.7%), Italy (4.6%), Egypt (4,5%) and Iraq (4.5 %). According to the results of the first quarter of 2017, the total share of these countries exceeds 70% of the total value of exports of this group.
In the group of residues and wastes of the food industry, cake is traditionally the defining export position for Ukraine. It was exported mainly to Turkey (16.5%), France (10.9%), Belarus (10.6%), Spain (8.1%), Italy (5.8%), Poland (5.7% ) and Morocco, India and the Netherlands. These countries provided domestic exporters with more than 70% of the cake shipments.
The cost of exports of Ukrainian meat increased almost twice if compared with the last year results. This was due to the continuing wide geographical diversification and consolidation in new markets after the loss of Russian market.
“In January-March 2017, the domestic demand for meat was the highest in Egypt (12.5%), the Netherlands (12.1%), Azerbaijan (9.5%), Belarus (8.7%), Iraq (7, 8%), while the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam also played a significant role in the procurement structure. “The listed countries accumulated about 80% of the total value of Ukrainian meat exports in the first quarter of 2017”, – concluded Nikolai Pugachev.
