Financial gap in Ukraine's agriculture nears $20 bln

MOSCOW. Oct 24 (Interfax) - The financial state of Ukraine's agricultural sector is deteriorating and cannot be expected for now to start to improve because of the continuing crisis, export restrictions, low procurement prices, the ruining of the guarantees system and the worsening credit worthiness of business, assistant professor at Kiev School of Economics Oleg Nivyevsky said.

"The financial gap in the agrarian sector of Ukraine is around $20 billion. For comparison, we carried out a similar but quite detailed calculation of the financial gap in 2012. It stood at approximately $9 billion then," Ukrainian media outlets quoted Nivyevsky as saying in a social media post.

He described the financial support landscape in this sector as "quite ill-defined, to put it mildly", especially as regards donor support, including from international organizations, other countries, etc.

"Everybody is doing something, but there is no clear picture as to whether it is needed, to what extent it is efficient, whether conflicting goals are present and so on and so forth. In other words, problems with coordination of donor assistance are clearly visible," the expert said.