The Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food forecasts in 2024 gross production of grain and oilseeds at the level of 74 million tons, of which about 52.4 million tons of cereals and 21.7 million tons of oilseeds.
As noted on the agency’s website, at the beginning of last year, the total gross harvest of grains and oilseeds for 2023 was also forecast to be almost 13% lower than the previous period, at 63.5 million tons, but weather conditions led to an increase in the harvest. Therefore, gross production in 2023 is about 82 million tons, of which cereals more than 60 million tons and oilseeds about 22 million tons.
“Forecasts for gross harvest figures are preliminary and will be adjusted during the year depending on circumstances, primarily weather conditions,” the Ministry of Agrarian Policy emphasized.
According to the forecast, in 2024, farmers will be able to harvest cereals in the following volumes: wheat – 19.2 million tons (22.2 million tons were harvested last year), barley – 4.9 million tons (5.7 million tons in 2023) and corn – 26.7 million tons (30.5 million tons).
Among oilseeds, soybeans are projected to increase. This crop is expected to produce 5.2 million tons, a year earlier 4.7 million tons were harvested. Sunflower production is forecast at 12.4 million tons versus 12.9 million tons, respectively. Rapeseed is planned to be harvested at 4.1 million tons, while last year’s crop was 4.7 million tons.
Sown areas of grain and leguminous crops are forecast at 10.6 million hectares, which is 395 thousand hectares less than in 2023. Of these, winter wheat is sown on 4.3 mln ha (-0.3 mln ha), spring wheat – 0.2 mln ha. (+0.2 thousand ha), winter barley – 0.47 million ha (-0.15 million ha).
The area of spring barley is forecasted at 0.94 million hectares (+0.06 million hectares), corn – 3.9 million hectares (-62 thousand hectares).
Among oilseeds, the area sown with soybeans is increasing. It is forecasted that it will be sown on the area of 2.2 million hectares. This is almost 400 thousand hectares more than last year. Sunflower will be sown almost as much as last year – 5.3 million hectares, rape – 1.5 million hectares, which is 0.1 million hectares less than last year.
The Ministry of Agrarian Policy, based on the results of a survey conducted in the State Agrarian Register on the preparation of agricultural producers for the sowing campaign of spring crops for the harvest-2024, reported that 70% of respondents plan to increase the area under soybean by an average of 21% compared to 2023.
The survey also showed that during the spring sowing season Ukrainian agrarians will prioritize grain legumes, the sown areas under which will increase by 11%, and spring barley – by 7%. It is expected that sown areas under spring rape will increase by 24%, sugar beet – by 17%, and under corn will decrease by 9%. Sunflower areas may potentially decrease.
Earlier, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy allowed a reduction in 2024 sown areas under spring crops by 0.5 million hectares or 3.7% compared to last season.
Representatives of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland, prosthesis manufacturer EnForce Medical Technologies, and the Siepomaga Charitable Foundation, together with representatives of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs, visited the center for social and psychological rehabilitation in Borodyanka, Kyiv region, where they are considering the possibility of establishing a Ukrainian-Polish prosthetics center.
“It is planned that people will be able to receive prosthetics and undergo rehabilitation in such an institution,” the Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine reports.
Veterans, participants of the Invictus Games, were the first to inspect the facility. In particular, they tested the accessibility, availability of everything necessary for the psychological and physical rehabilitation of veterans with disabilities, and checked the quality of services.
Now an expert assessment is expected from the Polish side on the possibility of its placement in the Borodyansky Center.
The initiative to establish the Ukrainian-Polish Prosthetics Center was discussed within the framework of the Ukrainian-Polish intergovernmental commission.
The possibility of expanding the existing center through additional construction is under discussion.
In January-March this year, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih Iron and Steel Works (AMKR, Dnipro region) increased steel production by 93% year-on-year to 278 thousand tons.
According to the company, compared to the fourth quarter of last year, iron ore concentrate production amounted to 1.775 million tons versus 1.283 million tons (38% more).
Blast furnace coke production in January-March 2023 amounted to 245 thousand tons compared to 211 thousand tons (up 16%), pig iron – 403 thousand tons compared to 392 thousand tons (up 3%), steel – 278 thousand tons compared to 250 thousand tons (up 11%), rolled products – 262 thousand tons compared to 230 thousand tons (up 14%). Production growth compared to the first quarter of 2023 ranged from 50% to 94%, depending on the type of product.
In March 2024, compared to March 2023, production of iron ore concentrate increased by 52% (from 427 thousand tons to 651 thousand tons), blast furnace coke by 50% (from 56 thousand tons to 84 thousand tons), pig iron by 27% (from 109 thousand tons to 138 thousand tons), steel by 61% (from 77 thousand tons to 124 thousand tons) and rolled products by 57% (from 74 thousand tons to 116 thousand tons). Production volumes also grew year-on-year, with iron ore concentrate up 14%, blast furnace coke up 9%, pig iron up 19%, and steel and rolled products up 61% and 59%, respectively.
These results were achieved despite Russian attacks against energy infrastructure and the resulting power outages, the press release said.
The first quarter of 2024 also reflects gradual progress in restoring the company’s production capacity.
“We plan to continue our production development program, in particular, to approach 50% utilization of our steelmaking capacity in the near future. At the same time, the stability of energy supply remains a significant factor in the successful implementation of our plans,” said Mauro Longobardo, CEO of AMKR.
“ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih is the largest rolled steel producer in Ukraine. It specializes in long products, including rebar and wire rod.
ArcelorMittal owns the largest mining and metallurgical plant in Ukraine, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, and a number of small companies, including ArcelorMittal Berislav.
Mittal Steel Corporation acquired a 93.02% stake in Kryvorizhstal in an open tender on October 24, 2005 for UAH 24.2 billion at a starting price of UAH 10 billion, after which the plant was renamed Mittal Steel Kryvyi Rih and later ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih.
The Eskulab laboratory chain is fulfilling its obligations, but the conflict between the owners has jeopardized the network’s development plans, said Natalia Kohut, Eskulab’s medical director.
“We fulfill 100% of the obligations we undertook in 2024 in terms of conducting trials. But the issue of interaction between the co-founders of the company, unfortunately, has suspended the dynamic growth of the network,” she said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday.
Kohut said that the company planned to open 25 branches in Kyiv and Lviv region in 2024 and start expanding to the central and eastern regions of Ukraine.
“We did have such opportunities. We have already opened three laboratories outside of Lviv and Kyiv, but unfortunately, we do not have this opportunity now,” she said.
Natalia Kohut also noted that since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the network has been accredited for the quality of its management system. At the same time, Eskulab provides laboratory services to more than 5,000 patients every day.
“We are conducting honest business activities, we have no financial abuses in relation to the obligations we have assumed,” she said.
For his part, Andriy Dubivka, CFO of Eskulab, noted that the possible losses of the network due to the conflict between the co-founders could be estimated at hundreds of millions of hryvnias, if not a billion.
“We are currently calculating the losses. We pay official dividends according to the reporting forms. We have set ourselves the task of making the company transparent and clean,” he said.
Andriy Dubivka clarified that at the meeting held last week, the co-founders of Eskulab did not agree on the formation of the company’s governing body, so the Management Board established by the decision of the meeting in October 2023 remains the legitimate body.
“At the meeting, the participants did not reach any agreement, as Sergiy Dyadyushko’s position was clear: the said management board is able to continue to fulfill its powers,” he said.
For his part, co-founder of the Eskulab network Serhiy Dyadyushko noted that the conflict between the co-founders arose in 2023, when co-founders Stanislav Lugovskyi and Denys Melnyk attempted to re-register Serhiy Dyadyushko’s share and remove him from the network. In addition, according to Serhiy Dyadyushko, his business partners did not support the activities of the charitable foundation Aesculab, which he had created, which, among other things, provides food, medicines and medical devices to the military.
“According to the version of the company’s charter adopted in October 2023, each of the company’s participants has a representative in the board, so there is one representative on my side and two on the side of my opponents,” he said.
As reported earlier, the Eskulab Group, which operates the Eskulab medical laboratory network (PE First Social Medical Laboratory (FSML) Eskulab and Eskulab Center LLC), announced the risks of stopping the network’s operation due to raider seizure attempts by its two co-founders Stanislav Luhovskyi and Denys Melnyk, who carried out a raider seizure and blocked Eskulab’s financial operations through their representatives in the management. In this regard, Diadiushko appealed to law enforcement agencies.
In his turn, Denys Melnyk said in a comment to Interfax-Ukraine that he and Stanislav Luhovskyi “are being removed from any management or influence on the company,” their access to their jobs has been blocked for several months, and Diadiushko “deliberately conceals the state of affairs in the financial and economic part.”
At the same time, Dyadyushko’s representative, lawyer Yuriy Petrovsky, said that the company’s shareholders are not deprived of the right to manage the company, as confirmed by the general meeting of the company’s shareholders convened by Lugovsky on April 12. At the same time, according to Melnyk, another meeting of Aesculab’s shareholders is scheduled for April 19, 2024.
He said, “as for the operational management of the company’s production processes, two participants carry out such management through their delegated representatives of the management: commercial director Roman Vysotsky and financial director Andriy Dubivka. Currently, it is Vysotskyi who is blocking the company’s operational activities.”…
Eskulab Medical Laboratory is one of the three largest private laboratories in Ukraine, contracted by the National Health Service of Ukraine (NHSU). The network consists of five laboratory centers and 180 sample collection points in the western regions of Ukraine and Kyiv.
In 2023, Eskulab paid UAH 33.8 million in taxes, including UAH 14.97 million in unified social tax, UAH 1.33 million in military duty, and UAH 14.034 million in personal income tax. It is one of the ten largest taxpayers in Lviv region.
The co-founders of PE “PSML “Eskulab” are Dyadyushko, who owns 43% of the company, Luhovskyi (43%) and Melnyk (14%). The co-founders of Eskulab Center LLC are Dyadyushko, Luhovskyi and Melnyk, who each own 20% of the company, and Ruslana Soltani, who owns 40%.
Aesculab, CONFLICT, Kohut, Petrovsky, RAIDING, Дубівка, Дядюшко
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has clarified the forecast of Ukraine’s GDP growth in 2024 under the World Economic Outlook (WEO): it expects it at the level of 3.2%, then during the third revision of the EFF Extended Fund Facility program in March estimated it in the range of 3-4%.
According to a publication on the Fund’s website on Tuesday, the economic growth forecast for 2025 was kept at 6.5%, up from 5.3% in 2023, according to the State Statistics Service.
The IMF also expects average annual inflation to slow to 6.4% this year from 12.9% last year and accelerate slightly to 7.6% in 2025.
Ukraine’s current account deficit forecast for this year and next year has been kept at the same level as in the third revision of the EFF program – 5.7% of GDP and 8.2% of GDP after 5.5% of GDP last year.
The Fund also reiterated expectations for unemployment to fall from 19.1% last year to 14.5% this year and 13.8% next year/
The IMF indicated that it forecast growth in the euro zone to accelerate to 0.8% this year and 1.5% next year after 0.4% last year, driven by the strong impact of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“Stronger household consumption as the impact of the energy price shock fades and lower inflation supports real income growth is expected to support the recovery,” the Fund said, clarifying that the updated estimate is 0.1-0.2 percentage points (p.p.) worse than the previous estimate made in January.
Overall, the WEO said global economic growth, estimated at 3.2% in 2023, will continue at the same pace in 2024 and 2025. The forecast for 2024 is revised upward by 0.1pc from the January estimate.
“These growth rates are low by historical standards, driven by both short-term factors, such as continued high borrowing costs and the withdrawal of fiscal support, and the longer-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, weak productivity growth, and increased geoeconomic fragmentation,” the IMF said.
Overall global inflation is expected to decline from an annual average of 6.8% in 2023 to 5.9% in 2024 and 4.5% in 2025, with advanced economies returning to their inflation targets sooner than emerging market and developing countries.
The report also notes that the forecast for global economic growth in five years’ time (at 3.1%) is the lowest in decades. ” An alarming change is the widening gap between many low-income countries and the rest of the world. The growth forecast for these economies has been revised downward and the inflation forecast has been raised,” the Fund states.
Worse still, the report notes that compared to most other regions, estimates of long-term damage for low-income developing countries, including some large countries, are revised upward, indicating that the poorest countries are still unable to recover from the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis.
Its experts attribute the relatively weak medium-term outlook to lower GDP per capita growth, due in part to persistent structural frictions preventing the movement of capital and labor to productive firms. And worsening growth prospects in China and other large emerging market economies, given their growing share in the global economy, will have a negative impact on the development prospects of their trading partners.
According to the IMF, the risks to the global economic outlook are currently balanced. “On the downside, new price spikes triggered by geopolitical tensions, including from the war in Ukraine and the conflict in Gaza and Israel, could, along with the resilience of core inflation while labor markets remain tight, lead to higher interest rate expectations and lower asset prices,” the WEO pointed out.
The fund added that geo-economic fragmentation could intensify, with higher barriers to the flow of goods, capital and people implying slower economic growth due to lower supply.
At the same time, it noted that artificial intelligence and stronger structural reforms than expected could boost productivity growth.
As the global economy approaches a soft landing, the priority for central banks in the short term is to ensure that inflation falls smoothly, avoiding both premature policy easing and excessive delay leading to lagging behind targets, the IMF also said.
“Multilateral cooperation is needed to limit the costs and risks associated with geoeconomic fragmentation and climate change, accelerate the transition to green energy, and facilitate debt restructuring,” the Fund concluded.
More details on macroeconomic indicators of Ukraine and the world, GDP of major countries and other economic topics were discussed in one of the video analysis of Experts club analytical center – https://youtu.be/w5fF_GYyrIc?si=Ymo-FlMFNGfLLdK-.
Subscribe to Experts club channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@ExpertsClub
EXPERTS CLUB, GDP GROWTH, IMF, MACROECONOMICS, UKRAINE, URAKIN
The share of imported construction materials in the Ukrainian market increased from 14% in 2021 to 23% in 2023, and the domestic construction materials market needs systematic support from the state.
This opinion was expressed by Volodymyr Vlasiuk, CEO of Ukrpromvneshexpertiza, Chairman of the CCIU Committee on Industrial Modernization, during the round table “Building Materials. Preparedness for Market Needs for Recovery” held at the Interfax-Ukraine news agency on Tuesday.
“The share of imports in covering domestic consumption has increased from 14% in 202 to 23% in 2023. Thus, even the funds that go through the public procurement procedure can be largely used for imports. More research is needed on individual materials, but the upward trend in the use of imported materials in a developed industry is generally negative for the economy,” Vlasiuk said.
He said that the second study of the construction materials market and its ability to meet the country’s needs since the beginning of the war is currently underway.
“The situation is changing dynamically. But there are still no glass production plants, as before. There are several (investment) projects, but they are not yet operational. As for such commodities as PVC, production has resumed and capacities have increased. New capacities are being built in the cement industry. But electrical equipment is still not available, as it was before the war. This is still a field for investment projects that should be stimulated by the state,” Vlasiuk said.
The expert highlighted key issues that businesses will not be able to solve without government involvement.
“In terms of stimulating demand, the role of the state is huge, as it increases procurement (for defense and recovery projects). It is extremely important that these funds are not spent on imported materials. We understand the extraordinary conditions in which Ukraine exists, we are at war. Therefore, in accordance with international law, we can apply, for example, Article 21 of the WTO, which allows a country to temporarily suspend its obligations assumed when joining the WTO,” Vlasiuk said.
He emphasized the need to focus on localization, purchasing materials (for budgetary or donor funds) only if at least some of them are produced in Ukraine.
The issue of booking specialists is also important. “It is necessary to find a balance between the needs of the economy and the frontline. Both areas are necessary for the country’s sustainability,” he said.
Another key task is to provide autonomous energy supply. “Obviously, it is necessary to move to a model of autonomous energy supply, for example, from alternative sources, primarily solar power plants. The state, together with partners, should offer good, cost-effective tools, as this requires a significant amount of funds,” Vlasiuk said.
