Ukraine said in Berlin it's ready to be a part of a grain cartel
2011-01-25 17:59:58
At Grennewoche, the annual German Ag Fair, attended by most European agricultural leaders, Ukraine’s Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Prysazhniuk, said that it may make sense for Ukraine to join with Russia and Kazakhstan to create a grain cartel. Although Ukraine stopped grain exports, as we believe on the basis of Russian requests, this year, we did not think they would begin abandoning an independent export policy in public so quickly. We forecasted that this would begin after the government did everything possible to not conclude a free trade agreement with the EU. Minister Prysazhniuk justified his statements about a possible cartel saying that it would make sense from a logistics perspective. Currently Ukraine, without a cartel obtains significant income from transit fees from Russian and Kazakh agricultural commodities. We don’t see how a cartel would increase Ukraine’s logistics revenues.