At a meeting on Friday, the Ukrainian government approved the composition of the delegation to begin negotiations with the European Union on an agreement on road freight transport between Ukraine and the EU, said Prime Minister Denis Shmygal.
“This means the maximum possible liberalization in this matter and in the issue of access to European ports,” he said, opening the meeting.
The Prime Minister pointed out that, according to the operative data of the State Customs Service, the total value of goods exported from Ukraine in April amounted to $ 2.7 billion, which is twice lower than in April 2021.
“Every day the government team works to increase the capacity of our western border. We are building a new logistics system. We are opening new checkpoints, green corridors. We have simplified customs as much as possible so that businesses can export products freely and quickly,” Shmygal said.
During the sowing season 2022, Ukraine sowed 11.84 million hectares of land with the main agricultural crops, which is 82.2% of the 14.4 million hectares planned for the current season, including 1.94 million hectares, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food announced on Friday.
According to the data published on its website, as of May 19, the area under sunflower crops is 3.94 million hectares (80% of the 4.93 million hectares planned for 2022), corn – 4.17 million hectares (86% of 4.85 million ha), spring barley – 927,500 ha (92.6% of 1.02 million ha), spring wheat – 188,600 ha (99.4% of 189,600 ha), oats – 156,800 ha (95.8% of 163,600 ha), peas – 124,800 ha (86% of 145,700 ha).
In addition, the sown area under potatoes is 1.07 million hectares (90% of 1.19 million hectares), soybeans – 728,600 ha (78.6% of 1.25 million ha), sugar beet – 182,000 ha (88% of 206,900 ha), spring rapeseed – 28,400 ha (95.3% of 29,800 ha), millet – 32,100 ha (51.5% from 62,300 ha), buckwheat – 37,400 ha (46% of 81,600 ha).
“The sowing season in Ukraine continues. As a result, almost 98% of the areas projected for spring wheat have already been sown,” the Ministry of Agrarian Policy said in a statement.
In addition, in 2021, winter crops were sown for the 2022 harvest on a total area of 7.7 million hectares, including 6.5 million hectares of winter wheat, 1 million hectares of barley and 0.16 million hectares of rye.
In January-April this year, Ukraine reduced the import of aluminum ores and concentrate (bauxite) in quantity terms by 47.5% compared to the same period last year, to 932,928 tonnes.
According to statistics released by the State Customs Service, during this period, bauxite imports in monetary terms decreased by 42.3%, to $46.830 million.
At the same time, imports were carried out mainly from Guinea (60.58% of supplies in monetary terms), Brazil (27.96%) and Ghana (7.64%).
Ukraine did not re-export bauxite in January-April 2022.
Ukraine has joined the signing of the Roadmap for Global Food Security, aimed at combating the global food crisis, which is increasingly aggravated due to the blocking of Ukrainian seaports by the Russian Federation, the country’s key infrastructure for the export of agricultural crops, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food announced on Thursday.
The corresponding document was signed on May 18 following a meeting of the heads of relevant agricultural ministries at the UN site in New York.
On the ministry’s website, it is specified that Minister of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine Mykola Solsky, in his address to the ministers of the agro-industrial complex of other countries, focused on the fact that the top priority for world food security was to stop Russia’s war against Ukraine and unblock the export of Ukrainian agricultural products.
According to him, due to the war in Ukraine, world prices for wheat and corn had already increased by more than 20%, which led to an increase in prices for basic food products in all countries of the world. The war unleashed by Russia is especially critical for the countries of Asia and Africa, which import grain mainly from Ukraine and which citizens spend more than 40% of their total costs on food.
The minister stressed that the global food crisis would worsen over time, and every state in the world has already begun to pay the price for Russian aggression in Ukraine due to grain shortages and inflation caused by rising food prices.
“Forecasts of the war impact on global food security, including the FAO forecast, must be adjusted to the above realities in the direction of deterioration. In order to prevent mass starvation, today it is critical to unblock the export of Ukrainian agricultural products,” the Ukrainian minister said.
According to him, in 2022, the future of three crops and the further work of their industry are being decided for Ukrainian farmers.
“Our farmers cannot export last year’s harvest. Secondly, due to the occupation and hostilities, we will harvest only half of this year’s harvest – its export may also be blocked … Thirdly, the next winter sowing campaign is under threat, after all, farmers could not sell their crops and do not have the means to purchase fuel, fertilizers, plant protection products, and they simply have nowhere to store this crop,” Solsky explained.
He recalled that most of this season’s winter wheat was sown in 2021 in the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine, where active hostilities are underway and some of which have been captured by Russian troops. The occupiers are actively stealing grain from the temporarily occupied territories, while Ukrainian farmers cannot harvest there, and if they do, they will not be able to sell it.
Ukrainian volunteers are faced with the problem of bringing humanitarian aid into the country, representatives of volunteer organizations have said during a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday.
“Now there are enough donors on the territory of the European Union who are interested in providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine, but they need the Ukrainian side to take it. Because of this, Ukrainian public organizations refuse humanitarian aid or transfer it to other organizations, as they cannot cover the cost logistics component of the delivery,” Head of the Ukrainian Exporters Club Yevhenia Lytvynova said.
Commenting on the transfer of thermal imagers and quadrocopters to Ukraine, she noted that such goods require a letter of guarantee from the end user, the author of which can only be a military command body of the Ministry of Defense or another military formation.
In turn, Head of the International Technology Transfer Association (ITTA) Artem Honcharenko said that the Ukrainian army today needs medicines, in particular hemostatic drugs, as well as drugs against ulcers, diarrhea, dysbacteriosis, and a runny nose.
He stressed that there is currently a strong demand for anthelmintic drugs, flea, tick, mosquito and antifungal drugs. In addition, the Ukrainian army requires basic medicines such as paracetamol, ibuprofen, as well as syringes, bandages and elastic bandages.
In turn, Director of the Center of the Academy of Construction of Ukraine Ivan Perehinets announced plans to create an international fund Ukraine to finance the construction of houses for people who lost their homes due to the Russian invasion.
“More than a million families were left without housing… We are now in the process of registering the Ukraine International Construction Fund, which will deal with the construction of houses,” Perehinets said.
In turn, Head of the International Relations Department of Kontramarka Help Oleksiy Honcharov announced plans to purchase a mobile field hospital.
“We are currently working on a mobile hospital that can drive close enough to the front line, deploy in a matter of minutes and provide full first aid,” Honcharov said.
According to him, such a field hospital was found in Turkey and funds are being collected for its subsequent purchase. The hospital is partly financed by charitable contributions from concerts held, most organized with the support of Kontramarka.
President of the Ukrainian Association of District and Regional Councils Serhiy Chernov said that on February 15, based on information from foreign colleagues and Ukrainian intelligence, the association decided to create a coordination center to assist local governments in providing humanitarian assistance, studying all possible consequences of hostilities, and working with religious denominations and preparation of documents “on the destruction caused by the Russian Federation, as well as compensation for losses.”
Restaurateur and volunteer Maryan Burmylo announced cooperation with the United States. “Ukrainian volunteers from California organized charitable assistance to medical institutions in Ukraine. Odesa residents Natalia Hryschenko and Oleksiy Buyadzhy (UkrainCA public initiative), with the help of the Mission to Ukraine team, arranged the supply of medicines at the expense of American funds of Cincinnati and Baltimore – sister cities of Ukrainian Kharkiv and Odesa. Aid in the form of the supply of surgical kits is provided by the International Surgical Health Initiative (ISHI, the USA),” he said.
BUYADZHY, CHERNOV, HONCHARENKO, HONCHAROV, HUMANITARIAN AID, PEREHINETS, URAKIN, VOLUNTEERS, ЛИТВИНОВА
Passengers carried in Jan-August of 2021, in mln
