Kyiv | Reuters — Ukraine on Monday said it has tightened rules related to certain food exports, imposing a six-month trading ban for any companies violating the regulations, to ease tensions with bordering countries.
The EU suspended import duties, quotas and trade defense measures for imports from Ukraine in June 2022 to support its economy after Russia’s invasion. However, cheap Ukrainian grain exports have sparked protests by governments, farmers and truckers in neighbouring countries, such as Poland and Hungary.
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To address the problem, Ukraine in October introduced a special export control mechanism to allow the government to better track shipments and punish offenders. The new rules came into effect on Friday.
“The Government adopted a decree that improves the rules for the export of certain agricultural products to prevent abuse,” the farm ministry said in a report.
“For example, if, according to the documents, the sunflower was going to Greece but was sold in Bulgaria, the entrepreneur will be excluded from the list of verified agricultural entities,” it added.
Until mid-September last year, the EU had allowed five countries – Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – to ban domestic sales of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seeds, while allowing the products to transit for export elsewhere.
The European Commission said this month it was looking into ways of allowing eastern EU member states to continue to restrict farm imports from Ukraine as it extends trade liberalization with Kyiv for a further year to June 2025.
Ukraine is a global producer and exporter of agricultural products and has traditionally used sea routes to supply food to countries in North Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
However, after the Russian invasion in February 2022 and the blocking of the main deep-water Black Sea ports, Ukraine was forced to divert its cargoes through land borders and some goods settled in neighbouring markets, affecting prices.
Ukraine’s grain exports in the 2023/24 July-June marketing season fell to about 22.1 million tons as of Jan. 24 from 25.7 million at the same stage last year, the government data showed.
The Ukrainian government expects a harvest of 81.3 million tons of grain and oilseeds in 2023, with a 2023/24 exportable surplus of about 50 million tons.
–Reporting for Reuters by Pavel Polityuk.
