World central banks in July, according to preliminary estimates of the World Gold Council (WGC), increased the amount of gold in their gold reserves by 37.1 tons.
The largest buyers were Poland (14.3 tons), Uzbekistan (9.6 tons) and India (5.4 tons). Jordan (4.3 tons), Turkey (3.8 tons), Qatar (2.3 tons), Czech Republic (1.6 tons), Egypt and Malta (0.1 tons each) also increased their reserves
Kazakhstan (3.9 tons) and Mongolia (0.7 tons) sold gold.
“Central banks have remained committed to hoarding gold in recent months. While the overall level of demand cooled slightly as the gold price continued to rise to new highs, it nevertheless remained positive,” WGC analyst Krishan Gopaul said in a review.
State-owned Ukreximbank (Kyiv) is closing its representative offices in the United Kingdom and the United States to optimize operating costs, the issuer said in a statement in the disclosure system of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission (NSSMC).
According to it, the above decisions were made by the supervisory board of the state-owned bank on August 30, 2024.
According to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), as of July 1, 2024, Ukreximbank ranked 3rd (UAH 287.18 billion) in terms of total assets among 62 banks in the country.
The net profit of the financial institution in 2023 amounted to UAH 3.25 billion.
The Government of Norway has allocated funds for the purchase of drones and air defense equipment for Ukraine as part of a joint project between the UK, the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Norway.
“Norway has contributed NOK 570 million (EUR 48.2 million – IF-U) to this donation. The acquisition is being made through the UK-led International Fund for Ukraine,” the Norwegian government’s press service said.
It is noted that the purpose of the UK-led fund is to provide Ukraine with military materials through industrial procurement. Norway has previously contributed a total of NOK 1.8 billion to the fund since 2022. Together with the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Australia, New Zealand and Iceland, a total of more than NOK 12.5 billion has been allocated.
“Ukraine is in dire need of more military equipment to protect itself from Russia’s aggressive war. Together with other countries, Norway will do everything possible to contribute,” commented Norwegian Defense Minister Bjørn Aril Gram.
Earlier, Norway contributed to the purchase of, among other things, air defense equipment, demining equipment, artillery ammunition, transport vehicles, engineering vehicles, asphalt pavers, spare parts and maintenance equipment for Ukrainian platforms and small boats.
The support is funded through the Nansen program.
The Verkhovna Rada has received a letter of resignation from Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk wrote.
“The statement will be considered at one of the next plenary sessions,” he wrote on his Facebook page, attaching a photo of Kuleba’s statement.
Source: https://interfax.com.ua/
According to EastFruit analysts, the blueberry season in Ukraine in 2024 was unsuccessful for producers. The incredibly early flowering of blueberry plantations, followed by frosts, led to some yield reduction and damage to quality in some regions of the country, but in general, the harvest volume was higher than in 2023. And even though farmers had many problems with harvesting, the supply of berries on the market increased.
Against the backdrop of the ongoing military aggression against Ukraine, farmers also had a lot of problems with blueberry marketing. One of the main problems is the low capacity of the domestic market. Accordingly, domestic prices for blueberries largely depended on the efficiency of exports, which also had certain problems. After all, only a small number of blueberry producers can collect sufficient sales for direct export.
As a result, at the beginning of the season, blueberry prices plummeted to anti-record levels, as we wrote about in this article. We would like to remind you that in this article we will talk about prices only for blueberries of the highest quality, i.e. blueberries that can be sold both on the domestic and foreign markets. And even for these, as you can see in the graph below, prices were also extremely low.
It should be said that in the 2024 season, the early start of the harvest also led to an early end to the massive blueberry harvest. Therefore, for most farmers, the season was already over by mid-August, which allowed blueberry prices to recover somewhat and even exceed the levels of the 2022 season.
Read also: Blueberry sales season in Ukrainian farms will end earlier than usual
Nevertheless, if we take into account the average prices over the months, especially during the peak two months when up to 90% of the harvest is harvested, i.e. July and August, we see that the average price for blueberries in Ukraine in 2024 was the lowest for all years.
The following graph demonstrates the fall in blueberry prices in Ukraine
As you can see, the average wholesale price for premium blueberries in Ukraine during the peak months was 39% lower than the average for the six previous seasons (2018-2023) and 15% lower than in the not so successful season of 2023. At the same time, the sharpest drop in price to the average was observed in July, when the bulk of the blueberry harvest in Ukraine is harvested.
“To assess how significant the decline in blueberry prices is for farmers, several additional factors should be taken into account. Factor No. 1 is inflation, which was very significant even for the US dollar. Thus, every year the price reduction needs to be adjusted by another 4-5 percentage points to get a real comparable figure. The second factor is the growth of plantation productivity in most blueberry producers in Ukraine, which allows for a slight increase in production efficiency and partially compensates for the losses from lower prices. This is because most blueberry plantations in Ukraine are just entering full fruiting. However, it is already clear that a further decline in blueberry prices will make growing blueberries for small farms that do not have the ability to enter foreign markets directly far from as profitable as in 2018-2021, and some will even be at risk of loss,” says Andriy Yarmak, economist at the Investment Department of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Although the blueberry season cannot yet be considered completely over, as technically in certain seasons Ukraine continues to actively export and sell berries on the domestic market in September and even some volumes in October, in 2024 the situation is such that the interim results of the season will be very close to the final ones.
This year, prices in September and October may well be quite high, because despite the resumption of blueberry production in Peru, massive supplies of blueberries from this country will go to Europe late to the usual time. Nevertheless, blueberry production in Europe and competition in this market from third countries such as Morocco, Georgia and even African countries continue to grow, which will continue to put pressure on prices.
The price of milk in Ukraine has risen by UAH 2, or 15%, since the beginning of July and will continue to rise in September, according to Infagro, an industry analytical agency.
“This scale of price increase is unprecedented for the Ukrainian raw materials market. And this is not the limit of price growth. In September, analysts predict a further increase in milk prices,” the analysts said.
They cited market changes, shortages of raw materials and rising costs due to limited energy supply as the reasons for the significant rise in the price of milk and dairy products.
Experts also noted that in the second half of August, hot weather set in again, which did not allow cattle to recover from the abnormal July heat. Cow productivity did not increase. The seasonal decline in milk production also contributed to the problem. At the same time, demand for raw materials increased, which led to a further significant rise in milk prices. In the last week of August, the problem of energy supply became more acute due to another hostile shelling.
In addition, in July, both the number of cows and milk production decreased significantly. Analysts cited data from the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, according to which, as of August 1, 2024, 1 million 255.4 thousand cows were kept in the private and industrial sectors of Ukraine, which is 7% less than a year ago. In agricultural enterprises, the number of cows decreased by 2%, to 380 thousand. The statistics for August are not better, according to the analytical review.
“Given the high cost of raw materials and the influence of other factors, dairy products are becoming more expensive. And if prices for finished dairy products are growing slowly, the cost of exchange goods has increased quite quickly and significantly,” Infagro summarized.
