The EU is hoping for an increase in the volume of grain exports from Ukraine in June, European Commissioner for Transport Adina Valean said earlier this week at a meeting with EU farming ministers in Brussels.
“We hope that we will be able to reach 3-4 million [tons of grain exported] as early as next month, using all the means at our disposal. But we must not forget that Ukraine is transporting its agricultural products by land for the first time, and, unfortunately, the volumes that we can transport, are smaller and cannot compare with those that are moved by sea,” the official was cited as saying by the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero.
Prior to the conflict, Ukraine’s exports to the EU amounted to some 5 million tons per month, Valean stated. The volumes were shipped through the Black Sea ports, but now, due to the conflict, these ports have been blocked, and deliveries “must be redirected to railways, roads and inland waterways, then to the ports of the EU for further exports to world markets,” Valean explained.