Ukrainian agriculture minister discusses reopening transit of agricultural products in Warsaw on Monday
Kiev will seek the reopening of food and grain transit via Poland as a 'first step' in talks in Warsaw on Monday, Ukraine's agriculture minister announced on Monday, after Poland and Hungary announced bans on some imports from Ukraine, Reuters reports, cited by Agerpres.
"The first step, in our opinion, should be the opening of transit, because it is very important and it is the thing that should be done unconditionally, and after that we will talk about other things," Agriculture Minister Mikola Solskyi said.
Polish farmers have complained that a large part of Ukrainian grain and other products are not distributed to the rest of the European Union but remain in the country, causing grain prices to fall.
The chairman of Poland's ruling Law and Justice party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, announced at an executive meeting on Saturday that he had decided to halt imports of Ukrainian products to avoid a crisis on the domestic agricultural market.
"As far as the figures are concerned, everything that crossed the Polish border (from Ukraine) constitutes around 10% of the total (food goods) exported from Ukraine," Solskyi said, according to the Telegram account of the Agriculture Ministry in Kiev.
According to Solskyi, deliveries to Hungary accounted for about 6% of Ukraine's agricultural exports.
The minister said the transit of food products through Hungary and Slovakia was not affected.
Solskyi said he would hold further talks in Romania on Wednesday and in Slovakia on Thursday.
In a statement to Reuters, the Ukrainian minister said the talks in Warsaw were due to start around noon.
