REUTERS
Ukraine's oilseeds exports in 2019 grew by 32% on year.
Ukraine's National Scientific Center "Institute of Agrarian Economics" says Germany became the major importer of Ukrainian oilseeds in 2019 with a 19% share in all oilseed supplies, while India was leading market for Ukrainian vegetable oil exports, having bought the produce accounting for over 30% of Ukraine's all vegetable oil shipments abroad.
Over the period under review, the country's oilseeds exports grew by 32% year-on-year, to US$2.5 billion. In total, Ukraine exported 6.9 million tonnes of oilseeds with major shipments being of rapeseed (3.2 million tonnes) and soybeans (3.6 million tonnes), the press service of the National Scientific Center "Institute of Agrarian Economics" said on March 4.
Experts note the strengthening of the European Union member states' position in Ukrainian oilseed imports, which share exceeded 60%, as the last year's feature for the Ukrainian economy. In particular, Germany was in the lead of Ukrainian oilseed shipments abroad, accounting for 18.9%, then come Turkey (18.2%) and Belgium (13.3%).
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Sunflower oil exports in 2019 grew by 9% from 2018, to record high 6.1 million tonnes, whose sales brought US$4.3 billion in revenue (4% up year-on-year), the report said.
In addition, Ukraine shipped abroad a record 375,000 tonnes of soybean oil, and 151,000 tonnes of rapeseed oil.
India traditionally topped the ranking of Ukrainian vegetable oil buyers (30.6%). Other major importers were China (15.7%), the Netherlands (9.7%), Spain (6.6%), as well as Iraq and Italy (5.6% each).
As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine in 2019 updated its historical record of agri-exports, having supplied to foreign markets agricultural products worth US$22.4 billion, which was almost 20% up from 2018.
In total, Ukraine's agri-food imports in 2019 stood at US$6.1 billion, which was 11% up year-on-year.