Ukraine exports 2.66 mln tonnes of agricultural products in July - ministry

MOSCOW. Aug 10 (Interfax) - Ukraine exported 2.66 million tonnes of grain, oil-bearing crops and other agricultural products by all modes of transport in July 2022, an increase of 22.7% month-on-month, Ukrainian media outlets said on Wednesday, citing the website of Ukraine's Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food.

However, these figures do not include the export of rapeseed and its by-products, which, if listed in the aforementioned statistics, will bring Ukraine's overall agricultural exports in July to 3 million tonnes, the ministry said.

According to the ministry's estimates, Ukraine in July 2022 exported 1.1 million tonnes of corn (a rise of 8% as compared to June 2022), 412,000 tonnes of wheat (threefold increase), 183,000 tonnes of barley (sevenfold increase), 362,000 tonnes of sunflower seed (twice as many as in June), 141,000 tonnes of soybeans (twice as many as in June), and 141,000 tonnes of crop meal (threefold increase).

Other agricultural exports from Ukraine in July included 15,700 tonnes of sunflower oil (15% more than in June) and 15,700 tonnes of soybean oil (-12%).

Meanwhile, the pace of a number of Ukrainian agricultural exports is slower than it was over the same period of 2021. Thus, in July 2021, Ukraine exported 960,000 tonnes of wheat (2.3 times more than in July 2022), 1.1 million tonnes of barley (six times more), 334,000 tonnes of sunflower oil (9% more), 21,000 tonnes of soybean oil (14% more), and 233,000 tonnes of crop meal (1.7 times more).

However, in July 2021, Ukraine exported 960,000 tonnes of corn, or 13% less than in July 2022, 189,600 tonnes of sunflower seed, or 1.9 times less than in July 2022, and 31,000 tonnes of soybean, or 4.5 times less.

Ukrainian Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Mykola Solskiy said earlier that this season Ukraine needs to export 70 million tonnes of grain and oil-bearing crops gathered both this year and last year. To this end, Ukraine should export at least 5 million tonnes of agricultural products per month. However, as of the end of July, agricultural exports from Ukraine stood at around 3 million tonnes per month.

According to the data published by the Ukrainian media outlets, citing the website of the Institute of Agrarian Economics, the export of agricultural products from Ukraine declined by 7% to $10.11 billion in January-June 2022 year-on-year.

Agricultural exports from Ukraine started to decrease in March, dropping by 41% to $4.43 billion in March-June 2022 from $7.47 billion in March-June 2021.

Ukraine's core agricultural exports in the first half of 2022 were grain ($4.24 billion), oils and fats ($2.75 billion), oil-bearing crops ($990 million), processing industry by-products ($549 million), and meat and offal ($456 million), the institute said.

However, agricultural imports to Ukraine saw an even bigger decline, falling by 24% to $2.76 billion in January-June 2022 year-on-year.

Agricultural products and foodstuffs continue to dominate Ukraine's overall exports, accounting for 44% of them in the first half of this year, the institute said.

"Today, the main objective of Ukrainian agricultural business, which is focused on export, is to minimize losses and to adapt to the constantly changing socioeconomic environment and the low predictability of tendencies on world markets," the institute quoted Bohdan Dukhnytskiy, senior research fellow at its department of agricultural production economy and international integration, as saying.   

Ukraine has exported 1.87 million tonnes of grain since the beginning of the 2022-2023 marketing year (July 2022-June 2023), a 1.94-fold decline as compared to the same period the year before, when Ukraine exported 3.63 million tonnes of grain from July 1 to August 5, 2021.

Between the start of the 2022-2023 marketing year and August 5, 2022, Ukraine exported 444,000 tonnes of wheat (2.8 times less year-on-year), 165,000 tonnes of barley (eight times less), and 4,700 tonnes of flour (2.9 times less). However, corn exports since the beginning of the 2022-2023 marketing year stood at 1.25 million tonnes, a 19.1% increase year-on-year.