Over the past decade, Ukraine has significantly increased grain exports. In 2022, 38.5 million tons of Ukrainian grain were exported to foreign markets, and revenues from the export of this grain amounted to $ 9.1 billion last year, the press service of the Verkhovna Rada reports.
However, according to the National Scientific Center “Institute of Agrarian Economics”, due to the war and the prolonged blocking of Ukrainian seaports, compared to 2021, there was a decrease in the volume of supplies of most of the main commodity items of grain group’s products.
Including:
- wheat exports amounted to 11.2 million tons – 44% less than in 2021
- barley exports decreased by 3.6 million tons compared to the previous year and amounted to 2.1 million tons
- Exports of rye decreased by 61%, amounting to about 53 thousand tons
- corn exported 25.0 million tons – 1% more than in 2021 at 24.7 million tons
The largest buyers of Ukrainian grain in 2022, as before, were the countries of Asia, Africa and Europe. At the same time, grain supplies to the European market have increased.
Since 2020, China has confidently held the lead in the top ten largest importers of Ukrainian grain, but in 2022 it lost ground to Romania, which in 2021 was not even among the top twenty major grain consumers.
Romania’s share in grain exports in 2022 amounted to 13.6% of the value of exports of this commodity group, pushing China with a share of 12.1% to second place in the ranking.
Turkey, which in 2021 was ranked third in the list of major consumers of Ukrainian grain, in 2022 with a share of 9.6% dropped to 4th place in the ranking, behind Spain, whose share was 10.8%.
In addition, in 2022, the top ten largest buyers of grain in Ukraine changed: Romania, Poland, Italy, Hungary, and South Korea replaced Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Libya, and Tunisia in the top ten.
Thus, the list of major importers of Ukrainian grains also includes Poland: Poland (7.0%), Egypt (5.9%), Italy (4.4%), Hungary (4.4%), the Netherlands (3.7%), and South Korea (2.1%).
Together, these 10 countries accounted for about 74% of the value of all grain purchases in Ukraine.