The European Union should think about reducing access to the European market of sugar from third countries at least by 10%, then there would be a place for Ukrainian sugar in the EU, which would not allow this market to collapse, said the director of the National Association of Sugar Beet Producers of Poland Rafal Strahota in the program “Between Brussels and Kiev” on farmer.pl.
“The European Union has opened up the market in recent years. It has signed a number of trade agreements with various third countries. I know it is difficult, but if we reduced access to the EU market by at least a dozen percent, there would be enough room for Ukrainian sugar, and at the same time it would not destroy the EU market,” he said.
The director of the industry association noted that no one in the European Union had raised this topic.
Strakhota recalled that the European Commission is developing a regulation on protective measures, which provides for the introduction of a limit on sugar imports from Ukraine, taking into account export data, which are based on 2022-2023. Taking these data, Strachota calculates that Ukraine will be allowed to supply Poland with 320,000 tons of sugar per year.
“This is too much,” he stated.
According to the National Association of Sugar Beet Producers of Poland, in 2023-2024, the structure of Poland’s sugar imports looked like this: 32% accounted for Ukraine, 23% – Brazil, 9% – Eswatini, 7% each – Mauritius and Colombia, 18% – other countries.
At the same time, Poland grew 2.34 million tons of sugar beet in 2023 by expanding the production area under it, which amounted to 265 thousand hectares. The average beet yield was about 64 tons/ha, with very large yield differences between individual regions. In Poland, more than 26,000 people grew beet last year.
“At the same time, from October to December 2023, average sugar prices in Poland fell by 12%, and when packaged in 1 kg packages, the price drop exceeded 20%,” said the director of the industry association.
Strahota expressed concern that before the Autonomous Trade Measures (ATM) come into effect in June 2024, the Polish market could face a problem due to Ukrainian sugar.
“We fear that by that time a lot of sugar may come from Ukraine. Let me remind you, the action has ended (the sugar season – IF-U) and sugar has been produced. It is in warehouses, and in fact in these warehouses there are still about 600 thousand of sugar, which can easily get to the EU,” – Strahota emphasized.
He recalled that in 2023 in Ukraine was sown about 250 thousand hectares of sugar beet, produced about 1.8 million tons of sugar. Domestic consumption is less than 1 million tons, so the export potential is 800 thousand tons.
“In the first three months of the current marketing year, about 200 thousand tons of sugar from Ukraine entered the EU,” the expert said.
The publication cited data according to which Ukraine supplied to Poland in 2021 17.777 thousand tons of sugar, in 2022 – 15.278 thousand tons, and in 2023 it reached 468.97 thousand tons.
“At stake is the fate of the extension of the EU trade liberalization with Ukraine for another year, that is, until June 2025 with the restriction of sugar imports from this country, but in this case, the average figures of 2022 and 2023, when imports of this raw material from Ukraine were huge, are taken as benchmarks,” regretted the director of the National Association of Sugar Beet Producers of Poland and added that the country asks the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Union to use the volume of supplies for 2021-2022 to calculate the allowable sugar imports.
Polish protesters plan to resume blocking trucks in the direction of the checkpoint “Korchova-Krakovec” from March 13, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBGS) reports. “On March 13, protesters plan to resume blocking trucks in the direction of the checkpoint “Korchova-Krakovets”,” the State Border Service said in a message in the Telegram channel on Monday.
The message also states that from today from “9.00 protesters will not let trucks through the checkpoint “Ugrinov” in the direction of Poland. At the exit from Poland will be allowed 4 trucks every hour”. Earlier this was reported by the speaker of the state Border service Andrey Demchenko on the air of the national telethon.
“In the direction of checkpoints “Dorogusk-Yagodin”, “Zosin-Ustilug”, “Dolgobichiv-Ugrinov”, “Hrebene – Rava-Russkaya”, “Medica-Shegini” restriction of movement for cargo vehicles continues”, – noted in the message of the state Border service.
“The movement of passenger vehicles and buses in all directions is not limited”, – stated in the message.
As reported with reference to Demchenko, on the night of March 8-9 Polish farmers stopped blocking the direction through the checkpoint “Korchova-Krakovets”, and on it since then significantly increased the load, there also formed queues. “Over these last days we see the intensity of traffic exactly at this checkpoint… That is, the intensity there is quite high with the possibility of crossing the border in both directions. But, of course, and in this direction the queue remains: as of this morning it is about 600 trucks,” – said Demchenko.
Polish border guards have passed information to the Ukrainian side that Polish farmers plan to temporarily stop blocking traffic at the checkpoint “Krakivets” until March 13, said the speaker of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine Andriy Demchenko.
“But whether it will be observed, whether before the 13th actually unblock the direction of the checkpoint “Krakovets” – we will see,” – said Demchenko on air telethon.
He pointed out that as of the morning of March 9, 2300 trucks are in queues at the border in all directions. The most difficult situation, according to Demchenko, opposite the checkpoint “Yagodin” and “Shegini”.
“In fact, there farmers do not let trucks traveling towards Poland through at all,” Demchenko noted.
Construction of the railway section Mostiska-Skniliv from the state border with Poland to Lviv will start this year, said Deputy Prime Minister for recovery – Minister of community development, territories and infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov.
“Construction of the first large section of the European gauge, Mostyska-Skniliv. We will connect our railroad with the European network. This is the first project, we will build it already this year together with European partners and donors,” he told at the forum “Ukraine. Year 2024” on Sunday.
In addition, this year it is planned to open several checkpoints for road transport on the border with Moldova, Romania, Hungary and Poland. The process of modernization of 23 checkpoints by the efforts of the Restoration Agency is also ongoing, Kubrakov added.
As reported, the construction of a narrow Euroway (1435 mm) on the Mostiska-Skniliv direction was planned to start back in 2020. Also in 2020, the government included this project in the list of priority investment projects until 2023. The project is estimated at $20.8 million.
Ukrzaliznytsia planned to complete work on the track construction project by the end of 2023.
Polish President Andrzej Duda said that blocking the border with Ukraine is not a decision of the Polish authorities, but of farmers, in turn the government is trying to solve the problem.
“Blocking the border is not a decision of the Polish authorities, it is just a decision made by farmers and farmers’ organizations,” Duda said on the air of the national telethon.
The Polish president hopes that the issue with farmers can be resolved through negotiations.
At the same time, Duda noted that after the Polish authorities opened grain corridors for the transit of Ukrainian grain, the amount of agricultural products transported through Poland from Ukraine increased 300 times.
The interview was recorded before February 20, when Polish striking farmers near the Medika-Szehyni checkpoint opened a cargo container with agricultural products and dumped them on the ground.
Metinvest Mining and Metallurgical Group increased its exports of steel products to Poland by about 16% year-on-year in 2023 to over 800 thousand tons from about 700 thousand tons in 2022.
According to Yulia Mezentseva, Head of Logistics at Metinvest Polska, in an interview with the leading Polish publication Puls Biznesu, the increase in cargo traffic is facilitated by the unblocking of routes, but transshipment in ports and border crossings remain bottlenecks.
It is also noted that despite the war, Metinvest is expanding its operations in the Polish market.
“2023 was slightly better for us than the previous year. There were no more congestion and queues on the Polish railway network, which contributed to an increase in transportation efficiency. Compared to the previous year, we recorded a 16% increase in tonnage. We transported a total of 1.9 million tons through Polish ports and railways, of which about 1.3 million were steel products, 378 thousand were iron ore and 237 thousand were coking coal,” Mezentseva stated.
Out of the total volume of products delivered from Ukraine to Poland, 939 thousand tons were exported to other countries through Polish ports.
“The coal needed for our steel plants in Ukraine was also transshipped in Polish ports,” the manager said.
Some of the goods brought from Ukraine to Poland were delivered by rail or truck to Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy, Slovakia, and other countries.
Mezentseva clarifies that iron ore used to dominate the structure of supplies from Ukraine, but now it is mainly steel products that are imported. According to the country’s Metallurgical Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Ukraine is the largest non-EU steel supplier to Poland.
The head of logistics at Metinvest Polska predicts that in 2024, Metinvest will at least maintain and perhaps even slightly increase the volume of supplies of some goods to the Polish market. It assumes that their structure will change, especially the volume of steel imported from Ukraine.
For their part, local producers fear that if demand in Poland starts to grow, Ukrainian steel will flood our market. Przemyslaw Sztuchkowski, president of Cognor, even suggests introducing limits on the supply of steel products from Ukraine to the EU. The idea is to allow free transit through Poland to other countries and to ensure that the volume of imports on the Polish market does not threaten the stable operation of Polish producers.
At the same time, Mezentseva states. “In 2021, 1.2 million tons of our steel products were sold directly to the Polish market, 0.7 million tons in the previous year, and 0.8 million tons in 2023. Due to the war, we have limited opportunities to grow production and supplies,” she notes.
In addition, she draws attention to the problems with the transportation of goods across the Polish-Ukrainian border and transshipment in ports, which impede supplies to our market and transit by sea.
“The Polish-Ukrainian agreement stipulates that six trains a day with steel and ore should pass through the wide gauge at the Medyka border crossing. In practice, three or four are allowed through, as the Polish border and railroad administrations give priority to other transport. Therefore, we often have to wait for a long time at the border, which increases our costs. For every hour of downtime, we have to pay CHF 1.9 per commercial wagon,” says Mezentseva.
She suggests that one of the reasons for the long queues at the border could be the recent protests by Polish carriers and farmers.
“The queue on the Ukrainian side sometimes reached 70 kilometers. In the case of delicate goods that needed to be delivered quickly to customers, we sometimes decided to change modes of transportation and transfer goods from cars to trains to avoid standing in a very long line,” says the manager.
She hopes that the suspension of the protests will facilitate uninterrupted transportation by road and rail. She emphasizes that after crossing the border, transportation through Poland is quite efficient.
“In 2022, we often had to wait on the access roads, but now PKP PLK has significantly improved the capacity of the roads leading to the ports,” says Mezentseva, adding that access to the terminals is almost hassle-free, but there are difficulties with transshipment.
“Bulk cargo, such as iron ore and coal, is transshipped much faster than steel products. Transshipment in Polish ports is four times slower than at Black Sea terminals,” Mezentseva said.
According to her, one of the reasons for this may be the lack of staff at the terminals.
The Metinvest representative also points out that Polish customs regulations do not take into account changes in the weight of bulk cargo during transit. However, they can occur, for example, due to weather conditions. Therefore, employees of transportation and transshipment companies have to spend a lot of time during inspections explaining that coal or ore may weigh a little more in rainy weather. There may also be so-called natural losses during transportation.
“Railroad rules allow a certain percentage of deterioration for different groups of goods. Customs rules, on the other hand, do not allow any losses that are subject to individual inspection by the service. For us, this means significant losses,” emphasizes Mezentseva.
Metinvest Group notes that it is interested in building long-term business relations in the Polish market.
“We are talking about challenges, but we are ready to work out solutions together with the Polish side. We want to simplify procedures and transportation,” adds the Head of Logistics at Metinvest Polska.
“Metinvest is a vertically integrated group of steel and mining companies. The group’s enterprises are located mainly in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro regions.
The main shareholders of the holding are SCM Group (71.24%) and Smart Holding (23.76%), which jointly manage it. Metinvest Holding LLC is the management company of Metinvest Group.
