Ukraine's Astarta boosts agro exports 1.5-fold in 2023-2024 season

MOSCOW. July 29 (Interfax) - Astarta, Ukraine's largest producer of sugar, delivered 1.26 million tonnes of agricultural products to foreign markets during the July 2023-June 2024 agricultural season, Ukrainian media reported, citing the company's press service on social media.

As previously reported, Astarta exported 833,000 tonnes of products in the 2022-2023 agricultural year, thus the figure increased 51% year-on-year.

The press service said that the agroholding exported 512,000 tonnes of corn, 375,000 tonnes of wheat, 140,000 tonnes of sugar, 125,000 tonnes of meal, 43,000 tonnes of soybean oil, 45,000 tonnes of rapeseed, and other agricultural products in the 2023-2024 season.

The main consumers of corn were Spain, Egypt, Italy, and Ireland; and of wheat were Spain, Indonesia, Romania, Portugal, and Italy. Sugar was exported to the markets of Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and meal and soybean oil were delivered to Hungary, Poland, the United Arab Emirates, Romania, and Saudi Arabia. The main consumers of organic products were Switzerland, the Czech Republic, France, and Germany.

Astarta exports its agricultural products to 46 countries overall.

Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding, which includes sugar factories, agricultural farms with a land bank of 220,000 hectares, dairy farms, an oil extraction plant, elevators, and a biogas complex.

Astarta's principal shareholders are the family of founder and CEO Viktor Ivanchik with a 40.68% stake, and Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. with a 29.91% stake. The company itself owns 2.12% of the shares, which it previously repurchased as part of a buyback.