Spain, China and Romania become the largest importers of Ukrainian grain in 2023

In 2023, Spain, China and Romania became the largest importers of Ukrainian grain, together these countries formed about 44% of the value volume of all purchases of grain products in Ukraine.

This is announced by the National Scientific Center "Institute of Agrarian Economy" with reference to the information of the State Customs Service, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

According to the report, representatives of the European Union, Asia and Africa traditionally became the largest buyers of Ukrainian grain last year.

At the same time, last year's exports were again carried out mainly to EU countries.

In 2023, Spain topped the ranking of the largest importers of Ukrainian grain with a share of 17.1% of the export value of this product group.

China was again second in the ranking last year with a share of 13.9%.

Romania, which in 2022 was the first in the ranking of the largest importers of Ukrainian grain, got the third place in 2023 with a share of 12.5%.

"Last year, 44.8 million tons of Ukrainian grain were exported to foreign markets, which was 16% higher than in 2022. The opposite trend was observed last year in terms of revenue from grain exports. In 2023, it amounted to USD 8.3 billion, decreasing by 9%. That is, export prices for Ukraine reflected the situation on the global market, because the FAO price index for grain crops decreased by more than 15% in 2023," said deputy director of the institute, Mykola Puhachov.

According to him, despite the ongoing war, active hostilities and targeted shelling of our port infrastructure, compared to 2022, an increase in the quantity of deliveries of the main product items of this group was recorded.

Thus, 26.4 million tons of corn were exported, which is 6% more than in 2022, wheat exports increased by 44% to 16.2 million tons, barley exports increased by 1% to 2.2 million tons.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, in 2023, compared to 2022, Ukraine reduced its export of agricultural products to the European Union by 3.8%, or by USD 0.5 billion, to USD 12.6 billion.