Astarta Agroholding, Ukraine’s largest sugar producer, supplied more than 1 million tons of products to global markets in 2023 and received EUR325 million in export revenue, up 17% compared to 2022, the agroholding’s press service reported on Facebook.
“The year 2023 was characterized by a number of next logistical hurdles: the termination of the grain agreement; significant limitation of export opportunities across land borders with the EU; regular Russian air attacks on Ukraine’s energy, railway and port infrastructure. On the other hand, these challenges mobilized our team to look for new opportunities. Diversifying logistics flows, we used combined types of transportation – the lion’s share of our products was exported through the sea corridor from the ports of Greater Odessa, guarded by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. We also delivered shiploads overland to Polish ports and through the Danube ports,” the press service quoted Astarta Commercial Director Vyacheslav Chuk as saying.
According to the information of the agricultural holding, the main consumers of corn from Astarta are China, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, wheat – Spain, Indonesia, Portugal, Sri Lanka. Astarta’s sugar, soybean oil and meal were supplied mainly to European markets. Astarta’s organic products were exported to Germany, France, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.
In general, the agricultural holding exported agricultural products to 44 countries.
Astarta said that it intends to continue working on diversification and expansion of sales markets, optimizing export logistics and increasing export volumes.
“Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding operating in eight regions of Ukraine. It includes six sugar factories, agricultural farms with a land bank of 220 thousand hectares and dairy farms with 22 thousand cattle, an oil extraction plant in Globino (Poltava region), seven elevators and a biogas complex.
The agroholding earned EUR1.24 mln of net profit in the third quarter of 2023, which is 27.7 times less than in the same period of 2022. Astarta’s revenue decreased by 14.4% to EUR104.75m, gross profit decreased by 2.7 times to EUR26.96m, operating profit decreased by 7.6 times to EUR6.79m and EBITDA decreased by 42.7% to EUR97.25m.
Thanks to a stronger performance in the first half of this year compared to the first half of last year, for the first nine months of 2023 as a whole, net profit decreased by 9.8% to EUR55.97m on revenue growth of 14.8% to EUR392.00m. The company’s gross profit increased by 3.0% to EUR151.91m, while operating profit decreased by 15.9% to EUR79.91m and EBITDA decreased by 10.8% to EUR116.63m.
In January 2024, accrued insurance premiums under Green Card international insurance contracts concluded by member companies of the Motor (Transport) Insurance Bureau of Ukraine (MTIBU) decreased by 1.93% compared to January 2023, to UAH 422.6 million.
According to the MTIBU website, the number of Green Card contracts concluded during this period decreased by 11.3% to 113.6 thousand.
At the same time, the amount of compensation paid on claims increased by 8.25% to EUR 3.684 million, while the number of paid claims increased by 20.3% to 1.166 thousand.
MTIBU is the only association of insurers that provides compulsory insurance of civil liability of owners of land vehicles for damage caused to third parties.
“Green Card is a system of insurance coverage for victims of road traffic accidents, regardless of their country of residence and country of vehicle registration. “The Green Card covers 45 countries in Europe, Asia and Africa.
According to the decision taken by the General Assembly of the Council of the Bureau of the International System of Motor Insurance “Green Card” in Luxembourg in May 2004, Ukraine became a full member of the system on January 1, 2005.
Number of unemployed people registered in public employment service as of 01.12.2023 (in thousands)
Source: Open4Business.com.ua and experts.news
BAE Systems, one of the world’s largest suppliers of technological solutions in the field of defense and a manufacturer of weapons, has opened an office in Kyiv. This was announced by BAE Systems Ukraine CEO Christian Seear at the conference “Global Outlook: A Winning Vision on Wednesday.
He added that the company has set up a joint venture with a local partner, plans to repair military equipment, and later establish its own production base.
“We recently established a legal entity in Ukraine, BAE Systems Ukraine LLC, which is an operating trading company in Ukraine. We have an office in Kyiv. I’m proud to say that we are one of the first companies to do this,” said Christian Sayre.
According to him, BAE Systems is focused on moving its repair capabilities to Ukraine.
“We have a phased process in which we will do repairs on Ukrainian soil, and in the future we will move to local production. We have teamed up with a local partner to achieve this goal,” said the CEO of BAE Systems Ukraine.
He also noted that the company is “committed to creating an industrial base” in Ukraine.
BAE Systems is a global British company with subsidiaries in the United States and Sweden. The weapons supplied by the company are being used to destroy the enemy in Ukraine, including the CV90 infantry fighting vehicle, 155-mm FH77 BW L52 “Archer” multi-purpose self-propelled artillery system, M109 self-propelled howitzer, M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, 55-mm Excalibur long-range precision guided rocket and BONUS precision-guided munitions.
“I’m sure many of our friends in this room have seen the enemy destroyed by these weapons,” said Christian Seear.
Earlier it was reported that the British military company Babcock opened an office in Kyiv.
The State Enterprise “Horse Breeding of Ukraine” will expand the sale of horses in Ukraine and abroad, as well as focus on popularization of Ukrainian horse breeding, the State Property Fund (SPF) said on Facebook.
“It is important that the SE team clearly understands: to develop, it is necessary to use new modern approaches to the technology of keeping and breeding breeding horses and building an effective business model. That is why the enterprise is being actively renewed”, – emphasized Vitaliy Koval, Chairman of FGI.
According to the Fund, currently the SE “Horse Breeding of Ukraine” includes 10 stud farms, three breeding horse breeding centers and a hippodrome. The total number of horses is 1717. Due to the armed aggression of Russia four stud farms with 561 horses are under occupation. Breeding work is carried out with five breeds – Ukrainian riding horse, thoroughbred riding horse, Novoaleksandrovsk truck, Oryol trotter and prize trotter.
“GP’s breeders are in demand both in Ukraine and abroad. We popularize and promote the Ukrainian riding breed on the sport market. In the private sector, the Novo-Olekvandrovskaya paddlewheel breed is in demand. All assets in horse breeding (riding, trotting, vesovoznoe) we must not only preserve, but also make competitive on world markets and auctions,” – said the head of the production department of SE “Horse Breeding of Ukraine” Lesya Tkachenko, quoted in the message.
As reported, the Government of Ukraine in December 2010 reorganized not subject to privatization horse-breeding state enterprises in SE “Horse Breeding of Ukraine”. Before the beginning of the war in its permanent use was 54.1 thousand hectares of agricultural land, of which – 43.5 thousand hectares of arable land.
The SE “Horse breeding of Ukraine” included “Dnepropetrovsk stud farm #65”, “Zaporozhye stud farm #86”, “Alexandria stud farm #174”, “Onufrievsk stud farm #175”, “Limarovsk stud farm #61”, “Derkulsk stud farm #63”, “Novoalexandrovsk Horse Breeding Farm No. 64”, “Dibrovsk Horse Breeding Farm No. 62”, “Lozova Horse Breeding Farm No. 124”, “Odessa State Agricultural Hippodrome” and Kyiv Regional Enterprise for Breeding in Animal Husbandry”.
In addition, the new enterprise included “Streltsy Horse Breeding Farm No. 60”, “Pivdenkonecenter”, “Western State Regional Research and Production Breeding and Technology Center for horse breeding, state breeding stud farm “Olympic”, Lviv Hippodrome, Migoshchansky State Hippodrome, “Yaholnitsky Horse Breeding Farm”.
Ukrainian corn is sold cheaper than American and Argentine corn by $20/ton on world markets, which is an abnormal distortion and leads to the restraint of sales by Ukrainian farmers, according to the analytical cooperative “Start”, created within the framework of the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Council (AAC).
“Ukraine actively trades corn, significant volumes have already been contracted in January-February. Market operators fear that the supply of corn from Argentina will increase on the world market and the conditions for the sale of Ukrainian grain will deteriorate,” analysts said, adding that prices on CIF terms have fallen sharply, as the supply of Ukrainian corn is high and the demand for it is low.
According to the experts, Ukrainian corn is traded conditionally at $200-210/ton on the European markets, while corn originating from the USA is traded at $220/ton.
“The gap of $20/ton is abnormally large. Ukrainian corn is too cheap on the world markets compared to its American and Argentine counterparts, and there are no objective reasons for such an imbalance,” the UAC believes.
At the same time, the CPT market is not yet active in terms of trade, many farmers are holding back corn and do not want to sell it at low prices. In Odesa ports, CPT prices are in the range of $147-155/ton, and in small ports on the Danube – $150-155/ton.
Large market players have paused in corn trading, while small and medium-sized traders are active on the market. As prices on CPT terms are so low that they make corn trading unprofitable for the average farmer, many farmers are ready to postpone corn sales until summer or even postpone them to the next season. And although Ukraine has significant corn stocks – about 17 million tons – the amount available for sale is an open question, the UAC summarized.
