Ukraine in the current agricultural year (July 2012 – June 2013) could be the seventh among global grain exporters, supplying 22 million tonnes of grain to foreign markets, President of the Ukrainian Grain Association (UGA), Volodymyr Klymenko, has said.
“It’s obvious that Ukraine this season will be seventh in the world after exporting 22 million tonnes of grain,” he said at the fifth annual Agribusiness in Ukraine conference organized by Adam Smith Institute in Kyiv on Wednesday.
Klymenko said that in terms of grain production the country is 10th largest in the world.
He also said that this agricultural year Ukraine will be ninth in exports of wheat, fifth in production of barley, fourth in exports of barley, seventh in production of corn and fourth in exports of corn.
According to the materials of the UGA published at the conference, exports of wheat this season will total 6.2 million tonnes, that for corn – 13 million tonnes and barley – 2.5 million tonnes. According to the UGA’s calculations, ending stocks of grain in the country will reach almost five million tonnes, including one million tonne of corn, three million tonnes of wheat and over 900,000 tonnes of barley.
As reported, referring to the Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry of Ukraine, Ukraine has supplied 18.2 million tonnes of grain crops to foreign markets since the beginning of the 2012/2013 marketing season as of March 7, 2013, which was five million tonnes more than in the same period of the previous marketing period.
The Ukrainian Agricultural Policy and Food Ministry and grain traders early this season defined that the government might introduce limitations on grain exports, and cap the maximum amounts of grain exports. The limit for wheat is 6.5 million tonnes.
The ministry assesses the export potential of the country for the current marketing year at 23.4 million tonnes of grain.
Under the agreements, from November until now wheat exports was minimum, as the country almost exhausted the potential of wheat exports supplies.
In 2012 Ukraine harvested around 46.2 million tonnes of grain, against the record high of 56.7 million tonnes gathered in 2011.
