The naval blockade of Ukrainian seaports has made markets for cargo inaccessible. As a result, the economy has been negatively affected by the loss of foreign currency earnings, the inability to restore industrial production, and a decline in Ukraine’s GDP. Moreover, such a blockade brings consequences to key export destinations for the agro-industrial complex, mining, metallurgy, etc.<\/p>\n
Undoubtedly, the grain corridor plays an important role in maintaining global food security. During the operation of the grain agreement, Ukraine supplied 25 million tons of agricultural products to the world. On March 18, the agreement was extended. However, prior to this extension, the business community reported that, unfortunately, the russian side was systematically delaying ship inspections. Within a week since the extension, the business reported that the grain corridor continues to operate, but problems with inspections remain. Therefore, we sincerely hope for further acceleration and look forward to the support of international partners in this context, namely, the UN and the Government of the Republic of Turkey.<\/p>\n
However, it is important to emphasize not only the full-fledged work of the grain initiative but also to achieve the establishment of uniform conditions for the transportation of all cargoes in the Azov-Black Sea basin for Ukraine. And, surely, the best solution would be to completely unblock commercial maritime transportation in the Black Sea and open Ukrainian ports to all types of cargo. It is crucial for export industries to continue their full-fledged work and unblock logistics chains.<\/p>\n
Indeed, some export industries are currently experiencing perhaps the most difficult times in the history of independent Ukraine. For example, this applies to the mining and metallurgy sector. The key reasons are the sea blockade, insufficient capacity at Ukraine’s western border crossings, European ports overcrowded with cargo and limited capacity of their infrastructure to accept cargo from Ukraine in full. Moreover, the rapid decline in prices for mining and metals products makes it virtually impossible to export to distant markets via logistics routes through EU ports. Thus, commodity prices fell by an average of one-third over the past few months compared to the average prices over the past year. Besides, the energy terror by the russian federation leads to damage to production facilities, limited electricity consumption, the need to use alternative power sources and, accordingly, an increase in production costs.<\/p>\n
As a result, the business representatives state that their workload has fallen by more than 50% from the pre-war level. So, companies are operating at a loss just to maintain production capacity, keep jobs, support employees and their families, and help the army and the most affected population. And based on the data of the EBA member companies in 2021, the Ukrainian mining and metallurgical complex exported ~60-80% of its output (mainly through seaports) and accounted for ~33% of Ukraine’s total exports (>$22 billion); MMC accounted for ~10% of Ukraine’s GDP and these commodities are key in the GDP structure of Dnipro, Donetsk, Poltava, and Zaporizhzhia regions.
\nThe agricultural potential also remains untapped. For example, about 10 million tons of agricultural products alone were not shipped to international markets.<\/p>\n
Full unblocking of commercial maritime transportation in the Black Sea and opening of Ukrainian ports for all types of cargo will not only allow Ukraine to create conditions for the growth of industrial production and GDP but also to save\/restore thousands of jobs, ensure payment of taxes and fees to the budget, which is extremely important for the state to fulfil its social, humanitarian and defence functions in this difficult time for our country.<\/p>\n
Besides, the opening of ports will be a powerful factor in stabilizing the hryvnia exchange rate, as it will provide additional significant foreign exchange earnings. The business community is determined to support and develop Ukraine’s economy. And we expect the same determination in actions from our international partners!<\/p>\n
Therefore, the European Business Association appeals to the United Nations (UN) and Turkey, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Vice Prime Minister for Reconstruction of Ukraine – Minister of Development of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure of Ukraine Oleksandr Kubrakov with a proposal to join forces and facilitate the full unblocking of Ukrainian Black Sea ports for commercial transportation of all types of cargo and implementation of guarantees of safety and freedom of navigation for merchant ships in the Black Sea following the norms of modern international law!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The naval blockade of Ukrainian seaports has made markets for cargo inaccessible. As a result, the economy has been negatively affected by the loss of foreign currency earnings, the inability to restore industrial production, and a decline in Ukraine’s GDP. Moreover, such a blockade brings consequences to key export destinations for the agro-industrial complex, mining, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23406,"featured_media":469692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15564,15563,15571],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-788702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lobbying-news-en","category-main-news-en","category-press-releases-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23406"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}