ANKARA: Ukraine substantially expanded sunseed exports in October 2016, when the monthly export volume was the highest in five seasons, reports UkrAgroConsult. So, 59.1 KMT of sunseed was shipped abroad in October against 2.9 KMT in September 2016 and 7.4 KMT at the same time last season. Altogether, Ukraine exported 62 KMT of sunseed in 2016/17 (September-October), or seven times as much as in the same period of last season (8.8 KMT) and only less than in MY 2003/04, when over 170 KMT was exported for these two months. This pace of sunseed exports confirms UkrAgroConsult’s forecast for 2016/17 announced at 500 KMT.
The range of sunseed export destinations was enlarged to 30 countries in October 2016 against 20 a month earlier. As before, the top sunseed buyers are European countries with an export share of 68% (41.8 KMT). Turkey, having boosted sunseed purchases to 17.5 KMT in October 2016, thereby increased its portion in Ukraine’s exports of this commodity to 28%. Please note that this country’s interest in Ukrainian sunseed is increasingly stronger from year to year. For instance, Turkey already imported more sunseed in the two months of MY 2016/17 than for the entire marketing year of 2015/16 – 16.6 KMT.