Wednesday, 8 February 2017

Ukraine’s state owned grain corporation avoids privatisation

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine have adopted a resolution to exclude the public joint stock company State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine from the list of state property to be privatised in 2017.

The PJSC, known as DPZKU or ДПЗКУ was established in 2010 and, according to their website, is the most powerful state vertically integrated company in the agricultural sector and is the leader in storing, processing, shipping and exporting of grains.

It owns 10% of the certified storage capacities and its port terminals handle up to 6% of the annual volumes of grain exports while the processing enterprises of the Corporation can provide up to 10% of domestic market demand of Ukraine in flour, cereals and animal feed.

The Minister of Agriculture said that it "will improve the efficiency of the company and continue effective cooperation with Chinese partners”, because, as we all know, state owned organisations are renowned for their supper efficiency.

In 2012 Corporation raised a government-secured loan of USD 1.5bn from the Export-Import Bank of China for a 15 year grain export project under trade agreements with China which probably has more to do with the Corporation dodging privatisation than anything to do with efficiency.