Shipments of farm produce account for over 37% of Ukrainian exports in nine months

Ukrainian agribusinesses in January-September 2018 exported products worth US$13 billion, which accounted for over 37% of total agri-exports.

"According to estimates by scientists at the Institute of Agrarian Economy, the share of agri-exports in Ukraine's total exports over the first nine months of 2018 continues to exceed 37%," the press service of the National Scientific Center "Institute of Agrarian Economy" said, referring to its deputy director Mykola Pugachov.

Read alsoUkraine's revenue from agriexports estimated at $13 bln in Jan-Sept

Leaders in the commodity structure of exports from Ukraine over the period under review were grain (US$4.8 billion), oilseeds ($1.3 billion), as well sunflower cake ($594 million) and meat products ($479 million).

Their aggregate share is 80% of domestic agri-exports, the expert said.

According to Pugachov, exports of certain types of foods in physical terms increased in the nine months of 2018 compared to the same period of last year.

In particular, supplies of chicken eggs to foreign markets soared by almost 28% to 82,000 tonnes y-o-y, those of apples and pears more than tripled to 29,000 tonnes. Exports of rapeseed oil grew from 53,000 tonnes to 101,000 tonnes, and shipments of domestic wines abroad increased from 33,000 tonnes to 48,000 tonnes.

The expert says this provided a significant increase in the cost of these products in the overall structure of Ukrainian agri-exports.

Moreover, in January-September 2018, poultry meat exports grew from $295 million to $381 million, while those of walnuts increased from $39 million to $69 million. According to the expert, this is due to the increase in prices of these types of foods.

As UNIAN reported earlier, total revenue from exports of Ukrainian agrarian products in 2017 rose by 16% against 2016, to almost $18 billion.