The founder of TAS Group of Companies (TAS), Sergey Tigipko, has announced new business areas for the group: the purchase of a seed plant and elevator with a storage capacity of 40 thousand tons, and the construction of apple processing plants and a railcar building plant.
“We are buying a seed plant and an elevator with 40 thousand tons of storage. We are building a railcar manufacturing plant in Kovel for the European railroad. We are building a plant for processing apples from scratch into apple concentrate,” said Tigipko at the 10th Kyiv International Economic Forum (KIEF).
TAS Group was founded in 1998. Its business interests include the financial sector (banking and insurance segments) and pharmacy, as well as industry, real estate, and venture capital projects.
“TAS Agro, a member of the group, cultivates 83 thousand hectares in Vinnytsia, Kyiv, Kirovohrad, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Kherson, and Dnipro regions, where it grows soybeans, sunflower, rapeseed, wheat, barley, and corn. In addition, the agroholding is engaged in dairy farming (up to 5.5 thousand heads of cattle) and owns six elevators with a one-time storage capacity of 250 thousand tons.
Epicenter K, which has been developing agricultural business since 2016, has launched a seed plant in Khmelnytsky region. According to the group’s press release, the Cimbria seed line (Denmark) has been installed at the plant, which allows processing 80-100 tonnes of seeds per day in compliance with the technology of calibration, disinfection and packing.
“This year we’ve begun to work independently with seed material for our own needs. For the autumn sowing campaign, the enterprise prepared more than 2,000 tonnes of wheat seeds,” head of the Epicenter K agribusiness Vasyl Moroz said.
In addition, the group is currently negotiating with several foreign producers on the cultivation and processing of seed material for their needs. In the future, the company will switch to the cultivation of seed material of grain and leguminous crops with its subsequent refinement.
Epicenter K noted that for growing seeds, the agricultural holding has its own hybridization plots with irrigation equipment and rain machines.
The agricultural sector of the Epicenter K group of companies cultivates over 120,000 hectares of land in Vinnytsia, Khmelnytsky, Ternopil, Cherkasy, and Kyiv regions. The group also includes 20 livestock farms and six elevators. Epicenter K plans to reach one million tonnes of grain storage capacity.
Germany’s Bayer chemical concern has launched a seed plant in the village of Pochuiky (Zhytomyr region) for $200 million, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has written on his Facebook page.
“Today on September 5 in Zhytomyr region, a new modern plant for the production of seeds of agricultural products of Bayer company was opened. These are 85 permanent and 220 seasonal jobs for Ukrainians. It is important that Bayer helps to solve social issues of the local community – supports the school and library, financed the construction of a new road and an outpatient clinic,” he wrote.
Poroshenko said that $200 million of investment funds were attracted for the construction of the plant.
“This is more evidence that Ukraine is an attractive country for international investment,” the president said.
Bayer is an international company specializing in life sciences, namely, health and agriculture. The company has been operating in Ukraine since 1992 in the form of Bayer LLC, is a major supplier of crop protection agents (pesticides, herbicides and fungicides) and seeds in Ukraine.
