The German government is organizing an international conference on Friday to find ways to dispose of wheat held in Ukraine and not reaching foreign markets due to the blockade of Ukrainian ports by the Russian military.
Among the participants in the meeting will be the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, German government sources said on Monday.
The conference will take place at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Berlin, and the hosts will be, in addition to the minister, Annalena Baerbock, the Minister of Agriculture, Cem Özdemir, and the Minister of Economic Cooperation, Svenja Schulze.
The invitation to the conference warns of the risk that the Russian war in Ukraine could trigger a world food crisis, due to the blockade of Ukrainian ports.
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“This is about finding ways to get grain out of Ukraine and also, on the other hand, stabilizing the food situation in the countries most threatened by a food crisis,” Annalena Baerbock said of the conference, following a meeting of EU ministers. European. External Relations of the Union (EU) in Luxembourg.
At the meeting next Friday, representatives of the G7 countries must be present (group of the most industrialized countries in the world: Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom, in addition to Germany) and the countries most affected by the shortage of cereals caused by the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine is one of the world’s leading grain producers. Currently, it is estimated that there are about 25 million tons of grain in Ukrainian ports.
Even so, despite the war and the blocked ports, the country exports 1.5 million tons of cereals per month -by land, using the railway and roads that are not destroyed-, the MNE ambassador assured on Monday Ukrainian, Olha Trofimtseva.
“In recent months we have exported an average of 1.5 million tons of cereals by land, rail and road”said the diplomat, who is also coordinator of the Council of Exporters and Investors, according to the local agency Ukrinform.
The official indicated that European infrastructure and logistics were not prepared for the amount of cereals exported by Ukraine by land, praising the efforts of Poland, Germany and other countries to build transit centers at the borders, speed up the passage of trains with Ukrainian cereals between countries to ports where they can be loaded onto ships.
“We recently heard from President [norte-americano, Joe] Biden says America too to build temporary grain storage facilities in Polandnear the border with Ukraine, to relieve those from Ukraine before the 2022 harvest,” he said.
The Ukrainian diplomat also drew attention to the fact that European partners have simplified all customs and phytosanitary control procedures as much as possible, so that Ukrainian grain quickly reaches final consumers.
So far, some seven million tons of wheat, 14 million tons of corn, three million tons of sunflower oil and three million tons of sunflower meal have not been able to reach international markets due to the Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports. Kyiv government.
Such has already led to a record rise in grain prices on the world market and, according to several organizations, could lead to a global food crisis and increased inflation.
Ukrinform also recalled that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba assured on May 31 that Ukraine is working on an international operation led by the UN, with associated fleets, to create safe trade routes for the export of food products from Ukraine. .
Source: Observadora
