Turkey continues to maintain contacts with both Ukraine and Russia, and the primary task of its diplomacy is to achieve a settlement of the situation, the Anadolu agency quoted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as saying.
“We maintain diplomatic contacts with both sides, discuss all proposals and support all initiatives aimed at establishing peace,” he said at a press conference following the NATO summit in Brussels.
Erdogan noted that Turkey maintains special relations with both countries.
“For this reason, the first task of Turkish diplomacy is to stop hostilities. Peace in Ukraine must be ensured according to a formula that will suit the two countries and the world community. It must be a stable and strong peace,” the Turkish President added.
Polish Ambassador to Ukraine Bartosz Cichocki, Turkish Ambassador to Ukraine Yağmur Ahmet Güldere and Apostolic Nuncio to Ukraine Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas continue to work in Kyiv, the Polish Ambassador to Ukraine said.
“There are also a nuncio and a Turkish ambassador,” Cichocki said on Twitter on Wednesday.
So he responded to the media’s suggestion that he was the only Western ambassador who did not leave Kyiv.
A free trade agreement with Turkey may make some types of Ukrainian agricultural products uncompetitive in Ukraine and in foreign markets, since Turkish food products have already taken a strong position around the world, and similar Ukrainian products may not find markets there.
Head of the Ukrainian Agricultural Export Association (UAEA) Dmytro Kroshka told Interfax-Ukraine on Monday about the impact of the FTA agreement with Turkey signed on February 3 on the export of Ukrainian agricultural products.
“Competition between Ukraine and Turkey is most visible on the markets of third countries. We have already determined that Turkish tomato on the Ukrainian market will be cheaper than domestic. Our producer understands that if he cannot make money on the Ukrainian market, he will seek sales in Europe or somewhere else, where it turns out that Turkey is exactly the same in those markets. And sooner or later, a manufacturer that cannot reorient itself will have to reduce production or abandon it, this is very likely,” the head of the association said.
He said that the key risk for the Ukrainian agribusiness from the zeroing of customs duties is the export orientation of Turkish producers, supported and controlled by the state.
“In Turkey, there is a huge infrastructural and financial support for exporters. The state establishes KPI there, and a manufacturer is supported, whose products are not just produced, but exported. And for a manufacturer to export, its products must meet the quality requirements that the market requires, and not only increase the volume. The effect of Turkish policy has become actively noticeable to us in recent years, when the active expansion of Ukrainian products to world markets began,” Kroshka said.
The head of the UAAE said that Ukrainian producers of apples, nuts and other products of the fruit and nut group will definitely benefit from the actions of the FTA, which Turkey will be able to re-export to the countries of the Middle East and Africa, taking advantage of its favorable geographical location. However, this is guaranteed to have a negative impact on vegetable and egg producers.
“We just need to look at the news about the FTA between Ukraine and Turkey as news that we will sell more there and the trade turnover will certainly increase. But at the same time, I believe that this agreement will reveal a wave of internal Ukrainian economic problems in agriculture, which are linked to the production of agricultural goods common with key Turkish products,” the expert said.
He also said that in 2022, Ukrainian agricultural producers were faced with an increase in energy costs, a review of existing taxes and the introduction of new ones, fiscalization of business, which, along with an increase in Turkish food imports, will lead to a wave of bankruptcies of small agricultural enterprises if the latter do not receive proper support from the state.
He said that the agreement on the main terms of trade in food products between Ukraine and Turkey took place simultaneously with the approval of the Export Strategy of Ukraine and the sectoral export strategy for food products, the implementation plans of which were provided, including reducing the tax burden on producers. However, this decision was never implemented, which will affect the state of the market in the near future.
“It seems to me that many manufacturers simply will not survive this stage of development of Ukraine. 2022, taking into account these factors, will be the beginning of a wave of bankruptcies, especially for small enterprises,” the head of the UAEA said.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS, FOREIGN MARKETS, FTA, TURKEY, UNCOMPETITIVE
Ukraine and Turkey, within the framework of the Free Trade Area (FTA) agreement, have reached an agreement on the complete liberalization of road transportation.
“As part of the FTA, a historic agreement was reached on the complete liberalization of road transportation. Restrictions for Ukrainian road carriers in the Turkish market will soon be lifted, in particular, this also applies to the entry of empty vehicles. That is, trucks will be able to enter empty and return with goods,” Infrastructure Minister of Ukraine Oleksandr Kubrakov wrote on his Facebook page.
He stressed that the next step is to expand cooperation on combined and multimodal transportation between Ukraine and Turkey.
“We propose to create special conditions for tuning transport chains in the “road-port-road” format,” Kubrakov stressed.
According to him, the strategic goal of Ukraine is the maximum removal of restrictions for Ukrainian carriers.
Kubrakov recalled that in negotiations with the European Union, Ukraine stands for the complete liberalization of road freight traffic.
He also expressed hope that cooperation between Ukraine and Turkey in terms of road construction will be expanded thanks to new projects, including the construction of concession roads.
Kubrakov also stressed that the countries continue to work together on an agreement on cooperation in the field of maritime search and rescue in the Black Sea.
“This is an important issue for Ukraine, which arose sharply after the annexation of Crimea. An agreement with Turkey will help legally secure Ukraine’s areas belonging to it, improve the ability to conduct search and rescue operations. This will eliminate insinuations from the aggressor country about Ukraine’s failure to fulfill its international obligations,” the minister said.
He also noted the prospects for cooperation between Turkish partners and the largest Ukrainian state stevedore – Pivdenny seaport, since among all Ukrainian ports it will potentially be able to receive the largest ships that will enter the Black Sea thanks to the built Istanbul Canal.
Among the proposals voiced by the parties to the discussion of the FTA agreement is the expansion of the geography of air travel between the countries, including on the Istanbul-Uzhgorod route.
Ukraine and Turkey have signed an agreement to expand the joint production of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
“Today we’ve paid special attention to cooperation in the aviation and defense industries. This is one of the locomotives of our strategic partnership. Our goal is the implementation of specific projects to create joint ventures, exchange of experience, exchange of technologies. An agreement has been signed today that will expand the production of unmanned aerial vehicles,” Zelensky said at a joint briefing with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Kyiv.
As reported, Oleksiy Arestovych, the speaker of the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) on resolving the situation in Donbas, in December 2021 announced that the Ukrainian-Turkish plant, which is being built in the town of Vasylkiv, Kyiv region, will produce reactive heavy drones of the ANKA type – the next generation of drones after Bayraktar, as well as promising Ukrainian drones.
“In particular, we can talk about jet drones, which are interceptors. That is, they are capable of operating against air targets, against other drones. Even against manned aircraft. They will have Ukrainian engines and the rest of Turkish avionics: a hull, etc.,” he said.
According to Arestovych, the plant in Vasylkiv should already produce the first products at the end of 2022.
The Cabinet of Ministers approved the draft Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Turkey at a government meeting on Wednesday.
According to First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economy Yulia Svyrydenko, the agreement will bring an additional 2% of GDP annually.
“The basis of the agreement is the zeroing of duties by Turkey for 10,337 commodity items. This is 95% of the total number of goods. Another 1,348 commodity items will be subject to tariff quotas or duty reduction,” she said, presenting the draft FTA Agreement with Turkey at the government meeting.
Currently, Ukraine exports 1,100 commodity items to Turkey, since Turkey has one of the highest levels of customs protection in the world, she said. At the same time, the level of Ukrainian customs duties is one of the lowest.
“In recent years, we have begun to observe that Ukrainian duties have generally ceased to be a barrier to Turkish goods, while Turkish duties for our goods have been an impenetrable wall for entering their market,” Svyrydenko said.
According to her, Ukraine reserves the right to apply a duty on the export of scrap metal.
“At the same time, Turkey opens the domestic market for our metal. Duties for another 130 commodity items of metallurgy goods have been partially reduced… And additional quotas have been established for 160 metallurgy goods,” Svyrydenko said.
According to her, Ukraine will retain duties on the import of used cars, setting transitional periods of three to five years for vehicles and light industry products. As for the latter, Svyrydenko announced state support in the form of affordable loans for the modernization of equipment for Ukrainian light industry companies.
At the same time, the parties reserve the right to restore the effect of duties through the mechanism of bilateral safeguard measures.
As Svyrydenko said, the review of the agreement shall take place no later than two years later.
