Page 64 - UKRRptDec18

Farming and food processing accounts for 17% of Ukraine’s GDP, Prime Minister Groysman said on Thursday, ‘The Day of the Farmer.” This year, India is the largest buyer of food made in Ukraine, purchasing 10% of exports. As a group, the EU buys 31.5% of Ukraine’s food exports.
With world sugar prices barely half their peaks of two years ago, Ukraine’s sugar beet industry is contracting . In the marketing year that ended in August, sugar exports were down 27% y/y, to 560,400 tons. Last spring’s planting was 280,000 hectares, 13% below the 2017 area. With a global sugar glut expected this winter, only 40 of the nation’s 46 sugar mills are operating this fall, according to the Ukrtsukor, the National Association of Sugar Producers.
Tests of soybean fields in six regions of Ukraine indicate that almost half of soybeans grown in Ukraine are genetically modified , Gabriel Paun, president of Romania’s Agent Green Association, tells UNIAN. Ukrainian law bans cultivation of GMO crops. Under the free trade pact with the EU, Ukraine has to adopt its legislation to comply with the EU’s strict GMO rules. Paun said his group tested samples from 10 fields in each of these key soy growing regions: Poltava, Khmelnitsky, Kiev, Kirovograd, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia. Of the 60 samples, 29 were GMO, reported Paun. Last spring, Chinese corn buyers switched from the US to Ukraine, alleging that Ukrainian corn is GMO-free, while American is not.
COFCO, or China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation, plans to invest up to $30mn to upgrade shipping berths in Mykolaiv port and to improve grain logistics on the Dnipro and the Southern Bug rivers, the Infrastructure Ministry reports from Beijing.
Ukraine, the world’s largest sunflower oil and meal exporter, increased its sunflower seed crop this year by 9.5%, to 15mn tons , according to a new forecast by the USDA. From this crop, oil exports will grow by 5%, to 5.6mn tons, and meal will grow by 6% to 6mn tons.
Sugar production soared in Ukraine this year . As of November 14, Ukrainian sugar refineries processed 9.2 million tonnes of sugar beets and produced 1.2 million tonnes of sugar.
9.1.7 TMT sector news
Contactless payments with smartphones increased nine fold during the first three quarters of this year , compared to the same period last year, according to the Ukrainian Processing centre, a company that provides processing services and software for banks. Of the more than 500,000 payments made, 48% were at supermarkets, 19% at restaurants, 15% for subway rides, 5% at gas stations, and 2% at pharmacies. The average charge was UAH176, or $6.30.
To promote Ukraine’s exports to China, Ukraine’s ‘Silk Link’ organization is to create a e-commerce platform with Ukrainian Bank for Reconstruction and Development , purchased last year by China's Bohai Commodity Exchange Co. An agreement was signed Friday in Kyiv at a Ukraine Silk Road forum, attended by 800 people and organized by Silk Link, a
64 UKRAINE Country Report December 2018 www.intellinews.com