Expert says farmers provide over 41% of Ukrainian exports

A number of records in terms of agricultural produce exports became a characteristic feature of 2017 for the domestic agrarian sector, the report says.

"This result was the second highest over the period of Ukraine's independence after the 2012 exports figures at $17.9 billion. Taking into account casein, albumin, skins, fur, wool, etc., the last year's exports totaled almost $18 billion," the press service said in a statement.

Traditionally, the key products of domestic agrarian exports were cereals, oilseeds, sunflower oil, as well as processing industry products, with a total share of 90%.

Read alsoYear of agrarian contrastsPugachov also noted that Ukraine in 2017 updated its record of grain exports, having supplied to the world markets 41.8 million tonnes, including 19.4 million tonnes of maize, 17.3 million tonnes of wheat, and 4.9 million tonnes of barley.

Ukraine in 2017 also saw record high exports of soybean (2.9 million tonnes), sunflower oil (5.8 million tonnes), sugar (almost 600,000 tonnes) and sunflower cake (4.9 million tonnes).

"Last year, livestock products exports increased significantly as well. Absolute records were registered in the export of poultry meat (271,000 tonnes), eggs (92,000 tonnes), butter (30,000 tonnes) and honey (68,000 tonnes)," the expert said.

In addition, the forecast drawn by scientists from the Institute of Agrarian Economy regarding the deliveries of domestic farm produce to the European Union was fully confirmed.

"Last year, Ukraine's agri-food exports to the EU totaled $5.8 billion, which was by $5 million up against record high export figures in the pre-crisis 2012 and 2013. It was also a record over the entire period of the country's independence," Pugachov summed up.

Read alsoUkraine sees over $5 bln in revenue from agriexports to EUAs UNIAN reported earlier, according to the Ukrainian Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry, Ukrainian farmers in 2016 supplied to the European Union markets agrarian products worth $4.242 billion, which was 1.6% up against 2015. Thus, the EU market in 2016 accounted for 27.5% of Ukraine's agriexports.

The EU additional trade preferences for Ukraine, which were finally approved by the European Parliament on September 13, 2017, entered into force on October 1, with the exception of export liberalization for barley, wheat, and maize that entered into force on January 1, 2018.