In February, Ukraine exported more than 5.2 million tons of grain, which exceeded the figure of February 2022

For more than a year, Ukraine has been resisting open aggression from the Russian Federation, and is winning on all fronts, including the restoration of export supplies. In February, grain export exceeded 5.2 million tons, while in February 2022 it amounted to 5.05 million tons.

According to the State Customs Service, in the 2022/23 FY as of March 1, 32.286 million tons of grain and leguminous crops were exported, of which 5.207 million tons were exported in February, in particular:

• wheat - 1.6 million tons, in total in the season 11.338 million tons (in 2021/22 MR - 18.092 million tons),
• barley - 232 thousand tons, in total - 2.05 million tons (5.636 million tons),
• corn - 3.33 million tons, in total - 18.604 (19.331) million tons,
• rye - 3 thousand tons, in total in the season - 16.1 (161.9) thousand tons.

In addition, in 2022/23 MR, 98.9 thousand tons of flour were exported, of which 94.9 thousand tons were wheat, while last year these figures were 68 and 66.6 thousand tons, respectively.

We will remind that in the 2021/22 MR as of March 1, 43.515 million tons of grain were exported, of which 5.045 million tons were exported in February.

In 2022, Ukraine exported 38.5 million tons of grain worth $9.1 billion, and the rating of Ukrainian grain importers was topped by Romania for the first time (with a share of 13.6%), which increased purchases to $1.243 billion compared to $1.8 million $ in 2021, pushing China to second place with a share of 12.1%.

Turkey, which in 2021 was in third place among domestic grain importers, in 2022 dropped to fourth place with a share of 9.6%, giving way to Spain with a share of 10.8%.

It is worth noting that Romania, Poland, Hungary, Italy and South Korea displaced Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Libya and Tunisia from the top ten buyers.

The grain corridor allowed to increase deliveries through the ports, and now Ukraine is trying to solve the problem of speeding up the inspection of vessels at the SCC in Istanbul, where Russian inspectors are delaying inspections.

Against the background of delays in the arrival of ships to the ports of the Black Sea, the Ukrainian Grain Association appealed to the government to make the process of forming a queue for the arrival of ships transparent and open, and to increase the speed of their loading at the ports.

For this purpose, it is proposed:

• fix the monthly inspection queue not for ships, but for stevedores / terminals, and give priority to the ships that were declared in the queue on February 9;
• give stevedores/terminals the right to independently determine the order of loading of ships awaiting inspection, taking into account plans, availability of cargo and other factors that ensure effective work planning;
• stevedores / terminals every 2 weeks will provide the Seaports Administration with a detailed plan for filling the allocated windows by ships, which will be agreed with representatives of the SCC;
• each port operator will be allocated a quota (number of ships) for inspection in proportion to capacity and specialization, taking into account the daily rate of acceptance of cars and wagons and the speed of loading the ship;
• quotas for inspections and actions of courts during the month will be published in advance for each port and terminal / stevedore, and will be published on the AMPU website;
• inspections will be planned evenly for each port operator during the month, taking into account the quota and the technical possibility of accumulation and loading for each terminal.

In addition, it is suggested that when planning inspections for the next month, priority should be given to those ships that did not pass the inspection in the previous month for objective reasons that did not depend on the port operators.