These issues were discussed during the meeting of Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Taras Kutovyi with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the State of Qatar Dzhassimom H.E. Mr. Rashid Bin Mubarak Al-Caliph and representatives of the Qatar Investment Authority (KIA), headed by Sheikh Abdulaziz Bin Ali Al Thani.
Supplies of Ukrainian agricultural products to Qatar were significantly increased during the last year. Ukraine is ready to establish a regular supply of agricultural, food and other products and expand the nomenclature for exports.
These issues were discussed during the meeting of Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Taras Kutovyi with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the State of Qatar Dzhassimom H.E. Mr. Rashid Bin Mubarak Al-Caliph and representatives of the Qatar Investment Authority (KIA), headed by Sheikh Abdulaziz Bin Ali Al Thani.
At the beginning Minister informed Qatari guests of the main strategic priorities for reform and development of the national agricultural sector. Particularly, about the strategy called "3+5": land reform, reform of state support for agriculture, privatization and state assets management efficiency.
"The sector generates 12% of gross added value. It is provided over 40% of total exports of the country by agri & food products. Despite the difficult political environment the sector maintains positive dynamics of development", - Taras Kutovyi said, referring to the main indicators of the agricultural sector.
Separately, the head of the ministry stressed that attraction of investments to the agricultural sector of Ukraine, which is one of the most investment attractive, is an important strategic direction.
"There are several directions for investments. This is financing large-scale projects in Ukraine as irrigation, agricultural logistics development, including transportation, storage and shipments of agricultural products ", - Taras Kutovyi said and added that among these directions we see – participation in the privatization of agrarian state enterprises; investments in agribusiness production of higher added value products (processing industry, organic farming, etc.) and cooperation in the field of agricultural machinery construction.
For their part, representatives of KIA highly appreciated the investment potential of Ukraine and expressed interest in establishing a regular supply of agricultural products to Qatar and in extending its nomenclature.
Taras Kutovyi expressed gratitude to the guests for their visit and said that Ukraine is interested in continuing the practice of close and friendly relations that serve for development of mutually beneficial and stable bilateral cooperation between Ukraine and the State of Qatar.
For information:
Qatar Investment Authority (KIA) - sovereign fund of Qatar, established in 2005 in order to diversify the economy by investing part of the profits from the sale of hydrocarbons into industrial, financial, banking and other projects abroad.
At the present moment the management of the Fund defined the following main areas for investments: market of securities (including derivatives), real estate, foreign currency, corporate shares, precious metals, investment funds and private companies, operating projects in industrial and agricultural sectors.
According to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine by results of 2015 the total volume of foreign trade between Ukraine and Qatar amounted to 24 million 321 thousands USD. The volume of Ukrainian exports to Qatar amounted to 15 mln. 991 thousands USD. In January-September 2016, the total volume of Ukrainian-Qatari trade totaled 32.553 million USD.
As of June 2016, Qatari investments in the Ukrainian economy recorded in the form of participation of the Qatari capital in a project on construction of the hotel "Fairmont" in Kiev (in 2010 the sovereign fund of Qatar "QIA" purchased 40% of shares of "Fairmont" with worth of 847 millions USD).