Ukrainian and Chinese quarantine services signed in Beijing a protocol on phytosanitary requirements for corn supplies to Asian countries, thus paving the way for domestic corn supplies to China. In addition, the document opens the door to the signing of a loan agreement worth USD 3 billion between the two countries on cooperation in the agricultural sector.

Director of the Department of Foreign Economic Relations at the Ukrainian Agricultural Policy and Food Ministry Kyrylo Klymenko told this to a UKRINFORM reporter.

"We successfully held the negotiations and signed on Friday a protocol on phytosanitary requirements for corn supplies from Ukraine to China between the Ministry of Agricultural Policy and Food of Ukraine and the Plant Protection & Plant Quarantine Division," Klymenko said.

He said that the signing of this document was an "action preceding" the signing of a loan agreement, envisaged by the memorandum of cooperation between the Ukrainian Agricultural Policy and Food Ministry and the Export-Import Bank of China to support priority projects in agriculture, which was signed Ukrainian during Agriculture Minister Mykola Prysiazhniuk's visit to China. "The currently signed protocol helps direct credit resources to the field of agricultural production. Until the phytosanitary procedures are not passed, we could not sign anything, because a loan agreement foresees reciprocal deliveries of grown products," he said.

According to Klymenko, deliveries could begin by the end of this year. "We are planning to supply 500,000 tons by the end of the year. All in all, as envisaged in the loan agreement, the point is that the state should supply two million tons per year," he said. However, public supplies could begin no earlier than the agreement is signed (the sides hope to sign it by the end of this year) and credit resources are allocated. In the meantime, only certain companies could supply corn to China under private contracts.

Ukrainian officials hope that after the successful completion of the first procedure, on corn, it will be possible to draw up all of the documents on other crops - soybeans, wheat, rapeseed, sunflower seeds and barley. Applications for them were submitted along with applications for corn in August 2012.

Klymenko said that China's demands for product quality were very high and that Ukraine had to face such an approach for the first time. At the same time, the parties broke "an absolute record of China" in terms of conducting approval procedures, doing that in three months, while in China it usually takes many years. A month after the application, the Chinese delegation arrived in Ukraine, checked the conditions for growing, harvesting, storage and transportation in a number of farms, as well as checks in laboratories, and they were satisfied with Ukraine's quality parameters and control system, he said.

As reported, in 2010, Ukraine and China signed an intergovernmental agreement on quarantine and plant protection.

Ukrinform