In January Ukraine set record for exports in wartime – Ministry of Economy

In January 2024, Ukraine achieved a record indicator of physical export volumes during Russia’s large-scale invasion: domestic producers exported 12 million tonnes of products over that month.

Source: Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy

Quote: "We are very close to reaching pre-war physical export volumes. In January 2024, Ukraine exported 12 million tonnes of products. This is only two million tonnes less than in pre-war January 2022.

Of these, 8.7 million tonnes were exported by sea," said Yuliia Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy.

According to her, in January, the first ship insured against military risks under UNITY insurance arrived in the ports of Greater Odesa (Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdenny). The ministry added that the insurance cost for this vessel is 0.75% of the vessel's cost, which is significantly less than the BCG insurance.

"The normalisation of the insurance market in trade is critical to resuming exports of value-added products. Our goal is to achieve not only pre-war export levels, but also increased revenue. This will become possible once Ukrainian exporters can freely ship containers by sea.

This will only be possible once the shipping insurance market has been restored. Therefore, it is critical for us that insurance becomes more affordable and is actually used to export Ukrainian products," Svyrydenko added.

The Unity ship insurance program, which the Ukrainian government is implementing in collaboration with Marsh McLennan and a pool of insurance companies led by ASCOT, is intended to reduce the cost of insurance for maritime transportation of grain and other important food products in Ukraine's territorial waters, thereby contributing to an increase in Ukrainian exports, the ministry stated.

The total coverage under the programme is US$50 million.

"According to estimates, the proposed insurance mechanism will reduce the cost of grain insurance by an average of about 2.5 percentage points from the cost of the insurance tariff, allowing grain traders to save around UAH 100-140 per tonne of cargo, and in general, agricultural producers are expected to save up to UAH 4 billion (approx. US$406.4 million – ed.)," the report said.

The government expects that in the future, such insurance instruments will be expanded to other types of exports.

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