October 18, 2010

Ukraine's agriculture ministry backs grain exports limit until 2011

The Ukrainian Agriculture Ministry has supported the Economy Ministry's initiative to impose quotas on the export of 2.7 million tonnes of grain until 2011, the ministry said.

Agriculture Minister Mykola Prysiazhniuk said that the quotas would be effective until January 1, 2011. In his opinion, the mentioned volume is sufficient for the proper export of grain by the end of this year.

In addition, the minister said that the activity of grain exports would significantly fall from mid-December due to the upcoming Christmas holidays.

The Agriculture Ministry supports the quota distribution principle that was in effect earlier, when 80% of quotas were distributed between grain exporting companies according to the volume of exports that were made in previous periods, and 20% between new exporters.

However, Prysiazhniuk said, in the current situation, first and foremost, quotas will have to be given to companies on the volumes of grain that is currently exported under the concluded contracts.

On October 11, the Economy Ministry published a draft government resolution initiating the introduction of quotas on the export of 2.702 million tonnes of grain until 2011, including 500,000 tonnes of wheat, two million tonnes of corn, 200,000 tonnes of barley, 1,000 tonnes of rye and 1,000 tonnes of buckwheat.

The Ukrainian Grain Association asked the government to consider increasing quotas on the export of wheat to 1.2 million tonnes, barley to 750,000 tonnes, and not to impose corn export quotas.