The fruit and berry harvest in 2018 could exceed the last year figure by 10-30%, Chairman of the Ukrsadprom association Dmytro Kroshka has said. “With favorable weather conditions, gross harvest of pomaceous, drupaceous fruit, berries and nuts in industrial farms could reach the average figure of the past years – 400,000-500,000 tonnes. The 2018 harvest could exceed the last year figure by 10-30%,” he said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday. Weather is the main risk factor. Kroshka said that this year blooming this year is quick due to high temperatures and some fruit and berries are ripening quickly. In addition, simultaneous expansion of depredators, the high likelihood of hail and not enough moisture in soil (twice less) would also affect the volume of the harvest.
Director of the Berry Nursery Brusviana Liliana Dmytriyeva said that the Ukrainian market is specific. In particular, the share of berries planted at farms is from one third to one fifth, while the rest is planted in households.
“At present, the leader in planted areas in Ukraine is black currant – around 50% of all areas of agricultural companies. Strawberry occupies 20-24% of the market and raspberry – 13-14%. Areas with blackberry occupy 13% of total areas, according to the State Statistics Service, while other sources said that it is 24%,” Dmytriyeva said.She also said that areas with sea-buckthorn, honeysuckle and alpine strawberry are swelling. Leaders in production of berries of all types are Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions, in production by agricultural companies – Vinnytsia, Volyn, Zhytomyr and Khmelnytsky regions. She said that the largest number of companies planting berries was created in these regions.
The new type of business is being developed in Ukraine: planting of berries “in tunnels.” “This allows preventing the influence of some cold factors and having early harvest. Berries “from tunnels” are more expensive than those planted in fields, but it allows placing Ukrainian products to the shelves of retail stores for a longer period of time,” the director of the Berry Nursery Brusviana said. The experts do not expect a significant reduction in prices in the market and among the main factors that may affect them, are: a significant increase in the area under berries, a rise in the price of crop protection products and fertilizers by almost 30% compared to 2017, as well as exports.
“The presence of competition, on one hand, should reduce the price, but on the other hand: there are natural negative factors that will affect the harvest. Most enterprises were not oriented to “fresh” or to domestic markets, so a significant increase in areas would not entail increased competition in the domestic market,”, Dmytriyeva said.
As for the supply of Ukrainian products abroad, Europe remains the most popular market.
“The most expensive and popular market is Europe, in particular, Great Britain, Germany, but to get to this market you need to incur certain costs for both fresh berries and frozen ones. Many enterprises plan to do this, but not everyone is ready,” she said.
In addition, Ukraine is also interested in the market of the Middle East. The market of neighboring countries, in particular, Belarus, is traditional.
In turn, the chairman of Ukrsadprom said that this marketing year, Ukraine exported apples to one of the new markets – the UAE.
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.
Ukraine and Germany have reached an agreement on holding a bilateral business forum in Ukraine in the near future, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said. “We’ve reached an agreement during the meeting with Federal Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on a strong German governmental delegation, which should visit Ukraine in the near future, to hold a powerful business forum,” Poroshenko said at a joint briefing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Friday. The president also specified that Germany is one of the leaders in investing in Ukraine.
“Both the Chancellor and I are satisfied with the growth rates of mutual trade, which has increased by more than 20%,” Poroshenko added.
Germany is ready to allocate EUR 10 million for projects of the Energy Efficiency Fund and EUR 4 million for the training of energy auditors and training of the Fund’s employees, Minister for Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Utilities Hennadiy Zubko has said. “The German government is ready to sign an agreement with IFC – International Finance Corporation – on adding additional EUR 10 million to the Multi-Donor Fund for co-financing the projects of the Energy Efficiency Fund of Ukraine,” Zubko wrote on his Facebook page.
He also said that the German government had agreed on the implementation of the project of technical assistance to Ukraine in the training of professional energy auditors and training of the Fund’s employees in the amount of EUR10 million.
As earlier reported, the Cabinet coordinated a joint program with the EU for financing the Energy Efficiency Fund in the amount of EUR 268 million. According to the Ministry of Regional Development’s press service, EU assistance in 2018 will be EUR 50 million, in 2019 – EUR 54 million. The press service also recalled that the financing of the Energy Efficiency Fund from the state budget will be UAH 1.6 billion in 2018.
The State Aviation Service of Ukraine has agreed to increase the frequency of flights on the main routes to Germany. The press service of the agency said now the maximum total number of flights on the air lines Kyiv-Berlin, Kyiv-Frankfurt, Kyiv-Munich reaches 52 flights a week. The appropriate agreement was achieved by correspondence between the aviation authorities of the countries.
The frequency on regional routes remains unchanged – seven flights a week for each side. The number of destinations is limited. In addition, Ukraine has achieved agreement with Hungary to increase the frequency of passenger and freight traffic on the Kyiv-Budapest route from nine to 14 flights a week.
