Ukraine will compensate possible damages to civilian vessels entering its ports to boost Black Sea trade. The country has approved a $500m insurance fund of compensation to cover the risks for ships trading to its ports.
The move was announced on Friday by Oleksandr Kubrakov, vice prime minister for the restoration of Ukraine, on the social media Twitter.
Vice prime minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on Friday: “We’re working on resuming delivery & expanding the range of products. I invite countries of the civilized world & interested businesses to cooperate.”
Ukraine is asking from the international community, in particular the UN and Türkiye as guarantors of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, to demand from the Russian Federation to stop immediately the delays in the work of the Black Sea grain corridor, and to unblock commercial navigation to the Ukrainian Black Sea ports.
They are accusing Russia for delays in inspections by Russia, mentioning that the query of more than 140 vessels was formed in Bosporus, the vast majority of which have been waiting there for more than a month, a Russian policy that has resulted in a systematic decrease of the freight turnover within the Grain initiative.
Delays in inspections of ships to and from Ukraine have been a point of contention between Russia and Ukraine. To reduce inspection delays, Ukraine is considering increasing the minimum size for ships carrying grains from 15,000 to 25,000 deadweight, as Bimco reveals in its new data report.
In a joint statement, the Deputy Prime-minister for Restoration of Ukraine Oleksandr Kubrakov and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba, are mentioning that “Russian representatives as part of inspection teams at the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul have systematically, for several months in a row, been delaying the inspection of vessels that are heading through the Bosporus Strait from/to Ukrainian ports.”
Ukraine has asked the United Nations and Türkiye to extend the Black Sea Grain Deal for at least one year, as Shipping Telegraph reported earlier this month. Deputy Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine, Yuriy Vaskov, said on qatari-state TV channel Al Jazeera that Ukraine wants from its international partners, the UN and Turkiye, to approve the agreement term for at least a year, and not for 120 days, as it is now, because the world market needs an extended planning horizon.
Ukraine´s dry bulk exports have plunged 77.8% during one year of war, as Bimco reveals in its new market report.
During that year, dry bulk exports from Ukraine have dropped 77.8% compared to the same period a year earlier, causing a decline in global dry bulk volumes.
As Bimco says “Almost twenty million tonnes of bulk agricultural goods have so far left Ukraine under the deal, which has helped cool cereal prices and improve food security, in low-income countries. However, grain shipments were still down 43.3% y/y between August 2022 and February 2023.”
