Ukraine's agriculture ministry says Ukraine is expected to export more grain than it was earlier planned / Photo from wikipedia.org
Ukrainian Agrarian Policy Minister Oleksiy Pavlenko says grain exports in the 2015-2016 marketing year (MY, July 2015 through June 2016) are projected at 37 million tonnes, whereas the previous forecast was slightly higher than 36 million tonnes.
"Whether this is good or bad, but we see that the preliminary figure is not even 36 million tonnes, it's 37 million tonnes. This is a reference figure for making various projections," the minister said.
Pavlenko also noted that last year Ukrainian agricultural exports accounted for 38% of foreign exchange earnings. The surplus of foreign trade in farm produce was estimated at $11.1 billion.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine harvested 59.96 million tonnes of grain and leguminous crops in 2015, which was 6.1% down on 2014, according to the State Statistics Service (excluding the temporarily occupied territories of Crimea and the Anti-Terrorist Operation zone).
According to expert projections, Ukraine may export up to 37.7 million tonnes of grain in the 2015-2016 MY. During the last season, grain exports totaled 34.8 million tonnes.
Ukraine exported $14.6 billion worth of farm produce in 2015, exceeding imports by $11.1 billion, which was a record high level since the country's independence. Last year, Asian countries accounted for 45% of Ukrainian food exports. The share of exports to Europe was 28.2%, to Africa 13.6% and to the CIS countries 10%. Grain accounted for 16% of all farm produce exports, fats and oil for 9% and oilseeds for 4%.