Grain Traders look beyond painful export restrictions
by admin on Sep.21, 2007, under Export Import, Trade & Market
It was only a few months ago that critics of the government’s grain export quotas were gnashing their teeth at the announcement of a virtual ban on grain exports. President Viktor Yushchenko’s Secretariat said the stiffening of the export quotas on this year’s harvest would hurt Ukraine’s bid to join the World Trade Organization. Farmers and traders recalled hundreds of millions of dollars in losses from last year’s quotas, which the government had imposed without warning. The country’s future as an international breadbasket was under threat, agricultural organizations warned.
But, now, as the country reaps another low harvest, agro-industry players are silently acknowledging the rectitude of the Cabinet’s June decision to all but halt foreign grain sales this year. And although grain traders aren’t expecting much of a relaxation of the quotas from an upcoming government review, that hasn’t dampened hopes of future profits, as global demand for grain looks to keep climbing sharply, and Ukraine’s rich soil continues to promise double the size of recent harvests. (continue reading…)