Due to the agreement on the opening of Ukrainian Black Sea ports, Ukraine will be able to receive significant foreign exchange earnings, which primarily guarantees the further functioning of the agricultural sector of our country. This is reported by the Ministry of Agricultural Policy.
“The Istanbul agreement is a great work done by the military and the team of the Ministry of Infrastructure. It directly affects many processes that take place in the world, but first of all – in Ukraine”, emphasized the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Mykola Solskyi during the press conference “Safe transportation of grain and food through the sea ports of Ukraine”.
According to him, the main reason for the threat of world hunger or a possible food shortage in Ukraine may be that Ukrainian farmers will not have money, and therefore, the motivation to continue planting.
With the unblocking of sea ports, the volume of grain exports should increase. In addition, logistics will be significantly cheaper, explained the Minister. After all, at the moment, the Ukrainian farmer has only about $100 of the conditional price of $350 per ton, the rest is the cost of transportation. At the same time, in market conditions, before the blockade of the ports, the farmer gave only 15% of the price of agricultural products to the infrastructure.
“We need to return to this. If this does not happen, an even bigger problem will arise – first of all in Ukraine, and then in the world,” Mykola Solsky emphasized.
In addition, as the Minister explained, the opening of ports is one of the factors in the world that currently affects the price of grain. Yes, the stock exchange reacted on the day the agreement was signed: quotations for wheat and corn decreased somewhat. At the same time, the selling price for Ukrainian farmers has already increased: by 20-30% for rapeseed, 10-20% for corn, and 10% for wheat.
Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov noted that the internal technical documents of the coordination center will be developed in Istanbul within the next two days. He is expected to start work from July 27.
“The activity of the coordination centre consists in the supervision and coordination of the functioning of the humanitarian corridor, but does not extend to the territorial waters of Ukraine. In the territorial waters of Ukraine, only the Ukrainian authorities have the competence to administer and ensure all processes,” he emphasized.
“For us, it is fundamentally important that Ukraine receives foreign exchange earnings, and the opening of ports in particular will allow us to receive at least a billion dollars a month. It is also important that our farmers receive funding already this year in order to be able to carry out a sowing campaign for the next season… This is a matter of survival for the entire industry,” Oleksandr Kubrakov said, adding that unlocking the export of Ukrainian grain is also important for international partners. “exclusive necessity”.
At the same time, the Minister of Infrastructure emphasized that there are no restrictions on prices and export volumes in the agreement itself.