Ukraine, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the European Union and Germany have signed an agreement on the establishment of a fund to improve energy efficiency in Ukraine, the Ukrainian Finance Ministry has reported on its website. “In accordance with the agreement, up to EUR 53 million of financing provided by the EU and Germany will be under the management of IFC at the initial stage,” the Finance Ministry said. The multi-donor fund with the Ukrainian Energy Efficiency Fund will jointly finance energy efficiency projects in apartment buildings in Ukraine and provide expert support for the development of the market, the Finance Ministry said.
According to Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk, the project will contribute to the creation of about 75,000 new jobs for engineers, builders and workers in the energy sector.
Exports of Ukrainian agrarian products to European countries in January-February 2018 increased by 28.1%, or by $224.7 million, and amounted to $1.025 billion compared to the same period of 2017, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food reported referring to the deputy minister for European integration, Olha Trofimtseva. “Thus, at the moment, the EU accounts for 36.5% of our agricultural exports,” she said.
On the whole, the foreign trade in agricultural products in the first two months of 2018 amounted to $3.7 billion, of which $2.8 billion fall for the export of Ukrainian agrarian and food products.
“In the first two months of this year, Ukrainian agrarian exports increased by $102.1 million compared to the corresponding period of 2017 and reached $2.8 billion. Our traditional export leaders are cereals with a 35.3% share, vegetable oil with 24.1% and oilseeds with 12%,” the deputy minister added. During this period, export of Ukrainian poultry meat grew by $29 million, eggs by $11.4 million, butter by $20 million, chocolate by $7.5 million, grape wines by $6.1 million, she said.
According to Trofimtseva, in January-February 2018, the largest importer of Ukrainian agrarian and food products was India, which imported Ukrainian products worth $335.9 million. The top five trade partners included Spain with $201.1 million worth of imported Ukrainian products, the Netherlands with $199.3 million, Egypt with $189.6 million and Italy with $185.6 million.
AGRARIAN, AGRI EXPORT, EU, IMPORT, INDIA
Ukraine can increase the supply of cherries to the markets of the EU and Asia in 2018 and expand the geography of exports of melons, the fruit and vegetable market analyst, Tetiana Hetman, has said.
“There will be attempts to enter the EU (Poland, the Baltic states) market with strawberries in May and autumn 2018. It is expected that exports of cherries to the EU and Asia will increase, as well as melons supplies would be expanded to new directions. For example, Kherson watermelons can go to the UK. The attempts were made in 2017,” she was quoted on the website of the Ukraine Horticulture Business Development Project (UHBDP).
According to the expert’s forecasts, this year exports of frozen raspberries will increase.
“Family farms bought poor quality planting material, and low-quality berries will be supplied to the market, low-grade raw material prices will be at or below cost, while Poles in the border zone are now building a lot of bases and they will demand quality raw materials, so the price will be kept for high-quality raw materials,” Hetman said.
