Page 48 - BNE_magazine_06_2020 Growers

48 I Southeast Europe bne June 2020
dealers who have previously been featured in corruption scandals in the ministry. Practice has shown that policy and strategy must be separate and procurement separate,” Scherban said.
Yemets became deeply unpopular
after he called retirees “corpses” in
a television interview, and argued the government shouldn’t spend money on saving the lives of people over 65 from coronavirus. But his dismissal came
after he was accused by the liberal, pro-European Holos (Voice) party
of engaging in corruption that they suspect slowed down the coronavirus response.
Specifically, Yemets has been accused by the head of the new state company Medical Procurement of Ukraine, Arsen Zhumadilov, of holding up medical procurements to force the state company to hire one of his close
associates, Volodymyr Hryshkovets, who had a previous conviction for shoplifting, as reported by RFE/RL.
In an interview with RFE/RL, Zhumadilov said he had been unable to do his job because of Yemets’ focus on getting Hryshkovets appointed as deputy director of the procurement company. Ukraine now has one of Europe’s largest coronavirus outbreaks, with 9,410 cases recorded as of April 28 according to the WHO.
European Commission data (though
a drop is anticipated in the first half of 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic). In 2018, the EU’s imports from China alone amounted to €394.8bn. China holds first place among exporters to
the EU, and is the bloc’s second-biggest export market.
This makes the ports in the region interesting for China as part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Beijing’s ambitious strategy to connect Asia with Europe and Africa by facilitating trade along land and maritime corridors.
A changed world
But in the three months since February, the world has changed. Global trade, including between China and Europe, is expected to see a dramatic slump
in the first half of this year as the coronavirus pandemic causes shutdowns in production and sends global supply chains into disarray.
Earlier this year when the coronavirus was mainly a Chinese problem, questions surfaced about the viability of investment plans connected to the BRI and based on trade with China; now the questions concern globalisation itself.
There is also speculation that the
crisis could force China to put some investments on hold at least for now
– even before the pandemic Chinese growth was slowing somewhat – though at the same time Beijing is seeking to
use the crisis to underline its soft power. This point is made in a report by New York-based consultancy Rhodium Group, which explores whether the crisis will
Adriatic ports after the storm
Clare Nuttall in Koper and Glasgow
Koper, Slovenia. February 2020. Outside Slovenia’s largest port, Luka Koper, on the country’s small sliver of Adriatic coast, huge cargo ships queue along the horizon. Dockside cranes tower above the pretty cafes
and souvenir shops along the seafront, and an elderly man dives into the
water for his morning swim just metres from where a huge container ship is unloading.
The port is at the centre of city life
in Koper, which has been a port city since Roman times when it was known as Insula Caprea, or Goat Island. The former island city, now part of the mainland thanks to a causeway built two centuries ago and extensive drainage works, is less than 20 km from the larger port of Trieste, just across the Italian border.
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They are among five major ports all clustered around the top of the Adriatic Sea: Trieste, Ravenna and Venice (Italy), Koper (Slovenia) and Rijeka (Croatia). Their location in the northern part of the sea makes them gateways to serve not only their own countries but those of Central and Northeast Europe, in particular for Chinese imports arriving in the Mediterranean via the Suez canal.
Before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic disrupted global trade and supply chains, the ports of the northern Adriatic were expanding. Much of the existing traffic through ports in the region is with China, which has aroused Beijing’s interest in developing one – or possibly several – of the north Adriatic ports.
Trade between China and the EU averages over €1bn a day, according to