REUTERS
The share of agricultural and food products in Ukraine's total exports was 43.9%.
Acting Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Olha Trofimtseva says the country in January-February 2019 boosted farm produce exports by 24.4% year-over-year (y-o-y), to US$3.5 billion.
"In January-February 2019, compared with the same period of 2018, exports of agricultural products increased by $683.8 million, which accounted for 24.4% of the total amount of exports at UAH 3.5 billion," the ministry's press service quoted Trofimtseva as saying on April 2.
According to the official, the share of agricultural and food products in Ukraine's total exports was 43.9%. At the same time, over the period under review, maize exports were in the lead (33.6% of the total shipments of agricultural products from Ukraine), those of sunflower, safflower or cottonseed oil accounted for 20.13%, as well as the share of wheat and wheat rye mixture exports was 11.84%.
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In addition, in the two months, maize exports grew significantly, that is by $528 million, or by 84.4%; exports of wheat grew by almost $90 million (by 27.8%); oil meal and other solid waste from the production of sunflower oil – by 55.8 million (by 39.7%); rapeseed – by $30.2 million (by 82.1%); soybean meal and other solid waste from soybean oil production – by $26.2 million, or by 2.1 times.
"If we consider the regional structure of agricultural products exports, most of all in the two months of this year, we exported to the Asian countries (shipments totaled $1.38). Then come the European Union states ($1.25 billion), African countries ($559 million), and the CIS countries ($217 million)," Trofimtseva added.
Key buyers of Ukrainian farm produce in January-February 2019 were India (9.6%), Turkey (7.8%), the Netherlands (7.4%), Spain (6.7%), China (5.8%), Italy (3.8%), Poland (3.3%), as well as Germany and Belarus (2.9% each).
As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine in 2018 increased the foreign trade turnover of agricultural products by $1.7 billion from 2017, to $24.3 billion, including $18.8 billion in agri-food exports, according to Ukraine's Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry.