The number of ships with Ukrainian agricultural products crossing the Bosphorus per day remains critically low

UkrAgroConsult

The 8th month of the grain corridor’s operation is coming to an end. The figures for March differ slightly from those for February. In particular, the statistics on the number of vessel passages per day has not changed for the better. We have an indicator of 2.8. In general, over the past three months of the Corridor’s operation, the number of vessels passing through the Bosphorus per day has been steadily fluctuating in the range of less than 3, instead of the 6-7 possible, according to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy. The worst figure was 2.5 in January.

The March tonnage of shipped products amounted to 3.8 million tons, which is 500 thousand tons more than in February. During the first month of spring, we shipped 908 thsd tonnes of wheat and 2.3 mln tonnes of corn.

By extending the grain corridor, we were able to ship more wheat to countries that really need it. We are talking about countries such as Yemen, Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Sudan, etc. It is worth noting that Ukraine has always covered a significant share of their annual food needs. So in March, we shipped 374 thousand tons of wheat to countries in need, which is 120 thousand tons more than in February. Of this amount, 60 thousand tons went to Yemen and Ethiopia as part of humanitarian programs. Currently, we have shipped almost 2 mln tonnes of wheat to the countries in need, which is 26.4% of the total exports of this crop.

However, there are countries where the supply of our wheat has fallen due to the unpredictability of the Corridor and the unwillingness of buyers to take risks. Among them is Indonesia. Before the war, we used to ship 2.6 mln tons of wheat to Indonesia, which was 24% of their annual needs of 11 mln tons, but during the last marketing season, only 341 thsd tonnes went there, which is only 4%.

The total number of shipments for 8 months is 26.3 mln tons of agricultural products, including 7.3 mln tons of wheat and 12.9 mln tons of corn.

Tags: Somalia, Ukraine, corn, export, grain, Sudan, wheat, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Yemen, Kenya