This year the forum has been attended by more than 600 representatives of agribusiness from 45 countries around the world, including the largest exporters, agricultural holdings, representatives of banks, investment funds, as well as insurance, consulting and surveying companies.
They discussed competitiveness of the Black Sea region in terms of record world grain and oil crops production, key factors of grain production in the region, wide reforms and economy deregulation in Ukraine and global tendencies of investment flows in agrarian sector.
According to the organizers, during the past years “Black Sea Grain” Forum became a unique international platform to study global tendencies to develop the world agrarian market, to exchange progressive initiatives and to establish international cooperation. The forum’s participants acknowledged NIBULON’s initiative to revive navigation along the DniproRiver as one of such progressive initiatives.
“NIBULON demonstrates grain exports of 4 million tons per year. A lot of exporters dream of such a result. The development of agrarian logistics along the Dnipro will increase the efficiency of agrarian sector and trade in Ukraine”, stressed UkrAgroConsult General Director Sergiy Feofilov.
NIBULON’s General Director Oleksiy Vadaturskyy noted challenges and obstacles the agricultural sector in Ukraine had faced and proposed ways to overcome them,
“The Ukrainian agricultural sector is the most endurable; today agriculture supports the lion’s share of Ukrainians. And I am sure that we have prospects for improvement in future. What should we do in order to increase competitiveness of Ukrainian grain? How not only to increase grain supply but also to expand production? Firstly, we must realize that the main problem is the absence of financing and access to credit resources of foreign banks”.
According to Oleksiy Vadaturskyy, although Ukraine is supported at the macroeconomic level, foreign banks are reducing investments in the private sector. The agrarian sector will stop its development within two years without direct investments from western international institutions,
“The Ukrainian authorities should address themselves to the foreign governments, requesting not only to support Ukraine declaratively but also to become guarantors so that financial institutions may provide long-term investments to Ukrainian companies. This will enable a Ukrainian investor to improve the economy in Ukraine and will support the domestic agrarian sector”.
Oleksiy Vadaturskyy also stressed that if the agrarian sector worked like NIBULON, Ukraine would receive a yield of more than 90 million tons, “We have demonstrated that despite the lack of machinery and resources, we harvest high yields by using our own capacities efficiently”.
The participants were particularly interested in NIBULON’s investment program to revive navigation along Ukrainian rivers,
“The DniproRiver is ranked in ninth place for its basin area, length of navigable areas and third place for its navigable depths. The river is ranked only in 13th place for river transportation volumes. This demonstrates great unused potential of the river. At present only 1.5 million tons of grain are transported annually which is about 4,2% of the total grain exports from the country. Please note that 50 million tons of grain crops per year (60% of the total exports) are transported along the Mississippi River. Considerable mud accumulation of navigable areas and a number of sand bars on the DniproRiver make it impossible to increase grain transportation. Dredging will help to increase the transportation volume planned – about 10 million tons per year. What does this bring to the economy? Three shipyards will be provided with work, more than 10 new transshipment terminals, towing and cargo fleet with the total deadweight of 500 thousand tons will be constructed.
I call on everybody not to wait until Ukrainian business itself will develop Ukraine. It is impossible to develop Ukraine without serious support of economically developed and successful countries. We invite foreign companies and financial institutions to come and build new prosperous Ukraine together”, called on Oleksiy Vadaturskyy.