Ukraine seeks greater presence in China's agro products market

KIEV - Ukraine is interested in expanding the presence of its agricultural producers in the Chinese market, Ukraine's State Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection said on Tuesday.

In particular, this year, Ukraine plans to start exporting fish products and animal feeding stuff to China, the agency said in a statement following the 6th meeting of the subcommittee on agriculture cooperation of the Chinese-Ukrainian intergovernmental commission.

"The protocols of sanitary and phytosanitary requirements for oilseed meals and sugar beet pulp exports have been already agreed and initialed," Volodymyr Lapa, head of the agency, said in the statement.

By the end of the next year, Ukraine hopes to get a green light from China on eggs, poultry, honey products and berries exports, the statement said.

This year, China has allowed beef imports from Ukraine and increased the list of certified Ukrainian dairy suppliers from 18 to 27.

According to the Ukrainian statistics, between 2012 and 2016, the trade turnover in agriculture products between Ukraine and China had increased by fivefold to $1.03 billion.