On the 1^st of January, 2016 free trade area between Ukraine and the EU bilaterally came into operation. The economic part of the Agreement itself has been in force since April 2014. How has the state of quota exhaustion changed for this period?

The amount of entirely exhausted quota has increased

Following the results of 2016 Ukraine has entirely closed quota for tax-free export of honey, sugar, cereals and flour, malt and wheat gluten, processed tomatoes, grape and apple juice (by 99.8%), crops as wheat, oats, corn and barley (by 99.8%) and basic ceiling amounts for poultry meat.

In total in 2016 it has been entirely exhausted quotas upon 11 groups of goods and that demonstrates prominent escalation of closure progress rate since in 2015 it was chosen upon 8 groups of goods (sugar by 99%), and in 2014 upon 6 groups.

Since 2016 the Agreement has been in force bilaterally and countries of the EU in their turn can export into Ukraine products within the limits of quotas. Thus, following the results of 2016 by countries of the EU quota upon tax-free export of poultry meat and its semi-finished goods has been entirely exhausted, sugar – 68.4% of quota; pork - 26,4%; poultry meat (additional) – 0,23%; pork (additional) – 0,11%.

Progress rate and volumes of quota exhaustion have increased

The main drivers of quota closure escalation have been the following groups of goods: starch-derived sugar and its syrup (from 6.1% exhausted quota in 2015 to 58,7% of quota in 2016), barley (from 77,7% in 2015 tо 99,8% in 2016), malt and wheat gluten (from 72,9% in 2015 to 100% in 2016), poultry meat (additional quota from 22,5% in 2015 to 43% in 2016), bran (from 22,7% to 42,8%), starch (from 9,6% to 18,8%).

With every year new quotas are used to the EU

In 2016 it was started exhaustion of tax-free quota upon processed dairy cream products (was used 24.4% of quota), processed grain products (2.7% of quota) and mushrooms (0.1%). In particular Ukraine began to export milk-powder (30%) and butter (46%). Thus Ukrainian manufacturers are increasing supplies of foods of animal origin with added value.

A part of the EU countries has increased in agrarian export of Ukraine.

In 2014 a part of the EU countries in agrarian export of Ukraine was 28,5%, in 2015 it reduced to 27,7% but if to compare January-October 2015 and similar period in 2016 the part has increased again from 25,9% (in 2015) to 27,3% (in 2016).

Increasing of volumes and quotas closure progress rate along with ramp-up of export to Europe in 2016 demonstrates revival of demand for Ukrainian products in the countries of the EU.  In particular as for the 17 January, 2017 Ukraine has already closed quota for tax-free export of honey,  78% of quota for grape and apple juice, 66% for sugar, 59% for wheat and 25% for poultry meat.