November 26, 2010

Ukraine likely to raise grain exports to Egypt

Ukraine's Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has said that the country may increase export of grain to Egypt.

"Ukraine has delivered one million tonnes of grain to Egypt, and deliveries could be significantly larger," Azarov said.

According to Azarov, several bilateral documents were signed at the end of a meeting of the Ukrainian-Egyptian intergovernmental commission on economic, scientific, and technical cooperation on November 24. At the same time, he stressed that he considered cooperation between the two countries in the agro-industrial complex to be extremely promising.

Azarov also emphasised that Ukraine and Egypt have agreed to set up a working group co-chaired by the heads of the two countries' agriculture agencies to draft a project for cooperation in the agro-industrial complex and determine ways of implementing it.

On November 24, Egypt's Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif said Ukraine was capable of meeting the Egyptian market's requirement for wheat.

Egypt has repeatedly said that it intends to broaden the range of agricultural products it purchases from Ukraine.

In December 2008, Egypt's Minister of Agriculture & Land Reclamation Amin Abaza promised to facilitate registration of Ukraine's Khlib Ukrainy state joint-stock company with Egypt's food administration to enable the company to participate in tenders under a state programme for delivery of grains to Egypt.