New dry cargo ships carrying agricultural products are entering Ukrainian ports, which has resulted in a 30-40% drop in sea freight rates over the past 2-3 weeks, Minister of Agrarian Policy and Trade Mykola Solsky said on the air of the United News marathon.
“New ships are coming. We express our gratitude to the military and the country’s leadership, who have done and are doing a lot to keep everything going (agricultural goods were exported by the Black Sea – IF-U). In principle, every farmer will soon be able to feel that logistics should become cheaper thanks to this route and, accordingly, the price of grain (profitability – IF-U) for the farmer will increase,” he said.
Mr. Solsky noted that a week and a half ago, small ships entered Ukrainian ports. The first one, he recalled, carried 4 thousand tons of grain. The ships that are now calling at the ports are 10 times larger in tonnage.
“This indicates that the market has cautiously but already begun to trust this corridor and the Ukrainian military, which made the operation of this channel (for exporting Ukrainian agricultural products – IF-U) possible,” the minister emphasized.
According to him, the arrival of ships to Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea, in particular to Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi, resulted in a decrease in freight prices “literally in two weeks when these first ships left the ports.”
“The first ones have left. It (freight – IF-U) was expensive. The next ones are cheaper. I think the freight has fallen by about 30-40% in 2-3 weeks. It’s still expensive, but it’s much cheaper than standing idle,” Solsky said and added that the first proposals for insurance of agricultural cargo transportation by sea have already appeared.
The Minister expressed hope that the cost of maritime logistics will continue to decline. He called for patience and trust in the work of the military and all the specialists involved in reopening the Black Sea.
Without the Black Sea ports, Ukraine is nowhere close to reaching the level of exports it urgently needs, said Kate Newton, Deputy Emergency Coordinator for the World Food Program (WFP Ukraine).
“The opening of the Black Sea ports is the most important way to return Ukraine to its former positions. Without the Black Sea ports, we cannot even reach the level of exports that Ukraine urgently needs. However, we are doing our best – by road, rail and now by river – to get closer to the maximum result. At the moment it is about 1 million tons per month, we may reach 2 million. But we urgently need access to the Black Sea in Ukraine,” Newton said at a briefing at the Ukraine media center in Kyiv on Thursday.
She recalled that before the war, Ukraine exported up to 6 million tons of grain every month. According to her, in 2021, about 400 million people around the world used Ukrainian products.
“We need to try to free up storage facilities across Ukraine, ensure that wheat, barley, sunflowers and everything that grows in Ukraine can be harvested and have the ability to be exported,” Newton said.
