Unblocking ports: Ukraine will receive 5 billion for grain. And Russia?
It is still unclear what benefit Russia will receive from the Istanbul negotiations on unblocking Ukrainian ports for grain exports.
This was stated by Andrei Sizov, director of the analytical center SovEcon, which specializes in the study of agricultural markets, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“Initially, we considered the likelihood of reaching consensus as low. Ukraine, by selling its accumulated grain and oil, can gain at least $5 billion, but it is not at all clear what the Kremlin will get from this. It is also worth noting that the grain year is just beginning, and now we are still talking about leftovers from the last harvest.
The new harvest is also expected to be relatively good for wartime. We estimate it at 57 million tons versus 86 million tons a year earlier, so in total the total supply of grain exceeds Ukraine’s internal needs three times,” the analyst told Kommersant.
According to him, if grain is not actively exported, this will collapse prices within the country and hit Ukrainian farmers hard.
“And attempts to export grain by land and across the Danube in any case will not compensate for the work of terminals in the Nikolaev and Odessa regions,” the expert believes.
According to him, it would be a good idea for Moscow to use the Istanbul negotiations as another channel to seek the removal of informal restrictions on the export of Russian agricultural goods.
“We would like to remind you that a month and a half ago, this topic was discussed at negotiations in Moscow and then in Washington by the Secretary General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, Rebekah Greenspan. But no breakthroughs have occurred since then,” the publication in turn points out.
It is worth noting that there is no specific information about the results of the negotiations between Ukraine, Turkey, Russia and the UN in Istanbul. A number of sources reported: the parties agreed that ships traveling to Ukrainian-controlled ports would be inspected by Turkey and UN representatives. In response, Russia allegedly promised not to interfere with the export of grain.
However, some experts say it is too early to talk about concluding any deal on this issue.
Unblocking ports: Ukraine will receive 5 billion for grain. What about Russia?