The National Scientific Center “Institute of the Agrarian Economics” informs that in 2019 Ukraine was still occupying the leading positions in the world ranking of some agricultural products exporters. According to the contemporaneous data, provided by the State Statistical Service of Ukraine and the International Trade Center (ITC), Ukraine is traditionally at the 1^st place by the sunflower oil exports volume.

Since 2006, when our country took the lead in the ranking of this product exporters for the 1^st time, having sold 1629 thousand tons of oil on the other countries’ markets, Ukraine has increased the exports volumes by 3,7 times. Last year the foreign deliveries of the locally produced sunflower oil amounted to 6107 thousand tons.

Moreover, Ukraine has occupied the second position among countries-exporters of barley, rapeseeds, fresh peas, millet, oil meal and sunflower cake.

If in 2018 Ukraine was on the 3^rd place among other oil meal and cake (mostly sunflower) exporters – after Indonesia and Canada – with the exports volumes of 4471 thousand tons, last year it increased the exports volumes of these types of products by almost 11% – up to 4957 thousand tons, and thanks to this, our country occupied the second place in the ranking after Indonesia.

In addition to this, Ukraine has moved from the 4^th to the 2^nd position by increasing its barley exports to 4143 thousand tons (+15%), leaving behind Australia and Russia. France is the leader of this ranking with the exports volume of 7171 thousand tons.

Last year the foreign sales of millet grew more than twice – to 52 thousand tons. This allowed our country to move from the 5^th to the 2^nd place, leaving behind France, Russia and India. The leader in this ranking is the USA (97 thousand tons).

 Despite the fact that the rapeseeds exports increased by one third (+29,4%) – from 2441 thousand tons in 2018 to 3159 thousand tons last year, Ukraine was still on the 2^nd place after Canada in this ranking.

The exports volumes of fresh and cooled peas last year amounted to only 49 thousand tons in comparison with 176 thousand tons in 2018. Due to this, Ukraine has moved from the 1^st to the 2^nd place after France.

The 3^rd positions Ukraine occupies in the rankings of shelled walnuts (41 thousand tons; +32%), dried peas (461 thousand tons; -26%) and the apple juice concentrate. At the same time, the exports volumes of the apple juice concentrate last year increased almost by 1,6 times – to 102 thousand tons, and this allowed our country to move from the 5^th to the 3^rd place.

Ukraine preserves the 4^th place on the corn market since 2016. Last year the local agricultural products manufacturers exported 32346 thousand tons of this crop and it is 1,5 times more in comparison with 2018.

Ukraine has strengthened its positions in the rankings of wheat (20023 thousand tons; +22%) and honey (56 thousand tons; +14%) exporters and has become the 4^th instead of 5^th in these rankings.

The 5^th places belong to Ukraine in the rankings of exporters of wheat flour (365 thousand tons; +20%) and walnuts in shells (27 thousand tons; +170%), when in 2018 our country was on the 7^th place.

Ukraine moved down from the 4^th to the 5^th place in the ranking of casein exporters, having reduced the volume of foreign supplies from 8 thousand tons in 2018 to 6 thousand tons last year.

Ukraine is also among the top-10 countries on the world market of other types of products, such as: dried egg whites, coriander, soy, cornstarch, soybean oil, poultry, rapeseed oil with a low content of erucic acid (canola), canned tomatoes, corn oil.

According to the experts, the characteristic feature of 2019 was the preservation or even strengthening of our country’s positions in exports of most types of domestic agri-food products.

One more important thing is, that according to the results of 2019 Ukraine has occupied the 3^rd place among the EU member countries agricultural products importers, delivering products worth 7,4 billion EUR.

Ukraine has started 2020 better than the previous year, actively increasing the agricultural exports. Though, implementation of the quarantine measures in March, due to COVID-19, is able to seriously slow down the export-import operations, including operations with agricultural products.

Many of our partner countries, including China and the European Union, have introduced the restrictions, which influence the international trade. Some countries had to reduce the food products imports due to devaluation of their national currencies.

Currently, on the world market the most burning issue is to renew the stability of functioning of the existing logistics chains. That is why, the scientists say, the competition for markets, which has been strong even before, will only intensify this year.

In order to normalize its exports in 2020, Ukraine has to fix the deliveries to Asian and European markets as soon as possible.

Reference source: DEBET-CREDIT