Hungary is working on expanding the border checkpoints with Ukraine Chop-Zahony and Luzhanka-Beregshurani in order to equip corridors for the export of agricultural products bypassing Ukrainian seaports blocked by the Russian Federation.
This was announced by the Parliamentary State Secretary of Hungary Levente Madyar during a meeting with the head of the Transcarpathian Regional Council Volodymyr Chubirko, organized to address issues of current and future humanitarian support for Ukraine by Hungary.
For his part, the head of the Transcarpathian Regional Council promised, as far as possible, to assist in the implementation of all projects planned by Hungary for implementation in Ukraine, and presented the Hungarian official with world-famous stamps and a postcard on the theme of the Russian ship.
As reported, Ukraine, together with Hungary, intends to apply to the European Union to increase the throughput capacity of checkpoints on the Ukrainian-Hungarian border.
“We will apply together to the EU so that we can develop the capacity of transit corridors from both the Ukrainian and Hungarian sides. We are concerned about what the food supply of the world will be like as a result of the war … We are interested in the movement of goods to accelerate. This is not only the Hungarian , Ukrainian or European interest. This is a global interest,” Hungarian Agriculture Minister Ivstan Nadia said last week.
According to the Minister of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine Mykola Solsky, Slovakia and Hungary are logistics corridors in the European market that have not been developed, because Ukraine exported agricultural products mainly through the sea.
“We have fewer checkpoints on the border with Hungary than with Romania or Poland, so we plan to increase it and are already working on it,” the Ukrainian minister stressed.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky noted “certain progress in the negotiations in Turkey on the restoration of food exports from Ukraine through the Black Sea.
“We are indeed making significant efforts to restore food supplies to the global market. I am grateful to the UN and Turkey for their respective efforts,” he said Wednesday evening in a traditional video message.
“The success of this story is needed not only by our state, but, without exaggeration, by the whole world. If the Russian threat to shipping in the Black Sea is removed, this will alleviate the severity of the global food crisis,” Zelensky said.
“The Ukrainian delegation reported to me that there is some progress. In the coming days, we will discuss the details with the UN Secretary General,” he said in conclusion.
Exports of goods in % to the previous period in 2021 and 2022
SSC of Ukraine
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.
Ukrenergo offers several options for distributing funds that will be received by the company from the sale at auctions of interstate cross-sections for commercial electricity exports to Europe, Head of the operator Volodymyr Kudrytsky said at a press conference in Kyiv on Wednesday.
According to him, the potential supply of generating capacities of Ukraine, which can be released and directed to the export of electricity, is calculated in gigawatts. At the same time, according to the current legislation, the proceeds from Ukrenergo shall be directed to the development of interconnectors.
“Given the scale of potential income, we simply won’t be able to use so many funds in the short term. In such a situation, various mechanisms for socializing this money into the energy sector are possible. For example, we have debts on the balancing market, and we can pay off debts over a certain period of time proportionally to all market participants using this money,” Kudrytsky said.
The head of Ukrenergo said that energy companies would be able to stabilize their work by using the money received to prepare for the upcoming winter, purchase fuel and carry out repairs.
Ukraine expects zero rates for the export of goods to the UK to be set from June, First Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said after a meeting with British Secretary of State for International Trade Anne-Marie Trevelyan.
“We expect that already in early June, zero customs rates for the export of Ukrainian goods to the UK will begin to operate. This will allow Ukrainian exporters to increase the export of products,” the ministry’s press service quoted Svyrydenko as saying in a Telegram message on Friday.
“First of all, we are talking about such goods as flour, grain, dairy products, poultry meat and semi-finished products, honey, corn, sugar. As a result, we will attract additional volumes of foreign exchange earnings to the country, which will have a positive impact on macro-financial stability in the state,” the first deputy prime minister said.
During the meeting, the parties also discussed the situation with trade between the countries. In 2021, it has grown by 40%.
“In 2022, we can expect significant progress even despite the war,” the Ministry of Economy noted.
The Minister of Economy of Ukraine and the British Secretary of State for International Trade also discussed the possibility of British investments in Ukraine. Last year they reached $3 billion.
EXPORTS, GOODS, UK, ZERO RATES
