This was announced by the deputy director of the national scientific center Institute of Agrarian Economics, academician of the national academy of agrarian sciences of Ukraine Mykola Puhachov.
In addition to this, he noted that the positive trade balance for our country was increased to $8 billion. This was due to the growth of domestic exports (+ $1.5 billion), which exceeded the growth of imports from the Asian region (+ $0.1 billion).
“The main trade partners for Ukraine in Asia in the context of exports this year are China, India, Turkey, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Israel. In total, these countries accumulate more than 4/5 of the value of sales to this region,” the scientist said.
As food suppliers, the largest purchases by domestic importing companies are carried out in Turkey, Indonesia, China, and India, where 76% of all Asian imports come from.
“Since Asia is the largest sales market for Ukrainian agro-food products, the commodity structure of our exports in this region fully reflects the general one. It is represented mainly by grain and oilseeds, vegetable oil, food processing residues, and meat products,” Puhachov added.
From Asian countries, Ukraine imports mainly exotic fruits, palm oil, oilseeds, tea, and coffee.
According to the predicted estimates of scientists from the Institute of Agrarian Economics, in 2021 Ukraine can beat last year's record of agricultural exports to Asian countries at $10.9 billion. This expected result is evidenced by the growing dynamics of supplies of domestic agricultural products to the countries of this region for more than 10 years, which persisted even in the period of 2014-2016 when a significant negative impact was registered as a result of the events in Crimea and Donbas.
“At the same time, the complex potential capacity of the Asian market remains untapped for Ukrainian suppliers, since at present the demand for food in this region is growing very actively,” Mykola Puhachov summed up.
