Ukrainian farmers in January 2017 shipped agricultural products to foreign markets to the tune of US$ 1.3 billion, which was 53.7% up year-over-year (y-o-y), and it is record high results in the past four years, according to the Ukrainian Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry`s press service.
Exports of farm produce accounted for a record share of 44.8% in total national exports, the press service reported.
The share of crop products was the largest in farm produce exports: crop exports amounted to $735.7 million, which was 66.6% up from 2016. In particular, grain shipments abroad grew 2.5 times, to $565.4 million.
Ukrainian farmers in January 2017 also exported animal fats and vegetable oil worth $371.9 million, which was more than twice as much as in 2016. At the same time, exports of finished food products, as well as livestock and animal products increased almost 2.5 times, to $204.5 million and $43.8 million, respectively.
Earlier, exports of Ukrainian agrarian products rose by 4.5% in 2016 from 2015, to $15.5 billion (42.5% of total Ukrainian exports), according to the Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry. Grain crops, vegetable oil, oilseeds, soybeans, sugar and meat traditionally were export-oriented staples. Key markets were Asian countries (45.9% of exports, worth $7 billion), the European Union (27.5% of exports, $4.2 billion), Africa (15.7% of exports, $2.4 billion), the CIS countries (7.7% of exports, $1.2 billion), and the United States (0.9% of exports, $45 million).
In 2016, Ukraine set a record for sugar exports, having shipped 466,000 tonnes, sunflower oil shipments were 4.8 million tonnes, those of cereals were 39 million tonnes (for 2015-2016 MY), and honey exports stood at 56,900 tonnes.
