Ukraine will strive to diversify markets for agricultural exports to offset losses from shrinking sales to Russia, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk said here on Friday.
"Russia's share in the consumption of Ukrainian agricultural products has fallen fourfold and now makes up 2 percent of Ukraine total agro-exports. In the same time, new markets have been opened up," Yatsenyuk said during a visit to an agricultural enterprise in the capital city of Kiev.
Ukraine has a great potential to increase farm produce supplies to Asian and European countries, the Premier said, urging local food producers to improve their quality standards in a bid to boost competitiveness of Ukrainian products in international markets.
In the first half of 2015, Ukraine's agricultural exports, which account for about one third of the country's total outbound shipments, declined 15 percent to 6.7 billion U.S. dollars year-on-year.
In the recording period, Ukrainian shipments of farm produce to the European Union countries fell by 37 percent to 1.7 billion dollars, while shipments to the Commonwealth of Independent States almost halved to 700 million dollars.
At the same time, exports to Asian countries increased 16 percent to 3.1 billion dollars in the first six months of this year.
