Page 58 - UKRRptNov20

well below its capacity of 17mn tons.
● Cars
Ukraine will spend a record $5.5bn repairing and rebuilding 7,000 km of roads next year​ – a 17% increase in kilometers and money over this year, the Finance Ministry reports on Facebook. The goal is to create a network of four lane divided highways connecting all 24 regional centres,” says Alex Tava, deputy Finance Minister. He said: “This will allow you to safely move at a speed of 130 km/h on highways.” Zelenskiy told the Rada yesterday: “We are stitching Ukraine together...with roads and bridges.”
Busfor, the online bus ticket service, reports that this summer’s most popular international bus route were all to Poland​. Alexey CEO of Busfor.ua, said that because of corona restrictions, Bulgaria fell out of summer and the most popular routes were: Kyiv-Warsaw, Kyiv-Wroclaw, Kyiv-Krakow, Poznan-Kyiv and Kyiv-Katowice. Overall, international bus travel was down 70% due to coronavirus controls.
9.1.6​ Agriculture sector news
Ukraine’s farmers have threshed 50.5 million tons of grains and legumes from 12.9 million hectares, or 84% of the projected area, ​reports the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture. Harvests of the big crops are: sunflower - 11.6 million tons from 92% of the planted land; soybeans - 2.2 million tons from 80% of the land; corn - 14.5 million tons from 56% of the land; and 3.7 million tons of sugar beets dug from 41% of the planted land. Looking ahead, as of Tuesday, farmers have sown 89% of their winter crops, including 91% of winter wheat.
Rising world grain prices are partially fuelled by disappointing harvests in Ukraine, one of the world’s top five grain producers. ​As of October 11, Ukraine’s grain exports were 13mn tons, down 12% y/y for the period since the July 1 start of the marketing year. Accounting for 16% of global grain exports, Ukraine exported 57.2mn tons during the last marketing year. With drought cutting this year’s overall grain harvest by 9%, to 68mn tons, the government predicts that exports could decline this marketing year by 17%, to 47.4mn tons.
Thanks to recent rains, autumn sowing has picked up, easing worries about a poor harvest next summer, reports APK-Inform consultancy. “Sufficiently heavy rains in the last days of September and early October ended the long-term air-soil drought in most regions of Ukraine and improved conditions for sowing and the development of winter crops,” APK says. After the slowest start in a decade, farmers have sowed 3.86mn hectares with winter crops, 47% of the planned area, reports the Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture Ministry.
58​ UKRAINE Country Report​ November 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com