In a letter to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, she said that the rapid restoration of the infrastructure of Ukrainian ports should facilitate the further export of agricultural products to the global market.
The EU and the international community are also contributing to the establishment of solidarity corridors, where Ukrainian grain and other agricultural products are transported by road through the five EU neighboring countries to ports on the Baltic Sea. Romanian transshipment ports on the Danube are also being deepened as an inland route to the ports near Constanța on the Black Sea.
Ukraine exported 4.6 million tons of grain in October 2023, of which 3.6 million tons were transported by sea, and 1 million tons by rail and road.
Ukraine has independently restored the maritime corridor on the Black Sea for grain export, said Vice Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna at a press conference in Vienna. According to her, there is also a special insurance fund organized by the United Kingdom to ensure the functioning of this 'grain corridor.'
For several weeks now, cargo ships have been sailing again from Ukrainian ports just off the coast of NATO countries Bulgaria and Romania heading south and to the Bosporus. That new shipping route 'beyond Russian reach' could provide a lifeline, also for the exhausted steel industry in Ukraine.
"The sea corridor is essential for the survival of Ukrainian agriculture," says Jean-Francois Lepy, head of grain trading at the French agribusiness group InVivo. "Without a corridor, there will be a serious problem in 2024/2025," he said on the sidelines of the Global Grain Conference earlier this month in Geneva.