Ukraine sets wartime export record in January

In January 2024, Ukraine reached a record level of physical exports during the large-scale invasion, with 12 million tonnes of products exported by domestic producers. Also in January, for the first time, a vessel insured against war risks under the UNITY insurance policy created by the Ukrainian Government together with partners was involved in export operations, said Yuliia Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine.

“We are very close to reaching pre-war physical export volumes. In January 2024, Ukraine exported 12 million tonnes of products. This is only two million tonnes less than in pre-war January 2022. Of these, 8.7 million tonnes were exported by sea,” Yuliia Svyrydenko said.

According to the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy, the prospects look no less optimistic. Last month, the first vessel insured against war risks under the UNITY insurance programme was loaded in the ports of Greater Odesa. The cost of insurance for this vessel was 0.75% of the vessel’s value, which is significantly cheaper than during the BCGI period.

“The normalisation of the insurance market in trade is a cornerstone element of the resumption of exports of value-added products. Our goal is to reach not only pre-war export volumes, but also higher revenues. This will be possible when Ukrainian exporters are able to freely ship containers by sea. And this will only be possible when the insurance market for maritime transport recovers. That is why it is so important for us that insurance becomes more affordable and is actually used to export Ukrainian products,” said Yuliia Svyrydenko.

As a reminder, the Unity ship insurance programme, which the Government of Ukraine is implementing jointly with Marsh McLennan and a pool of insurance companies led by ASCOT, is designed to reduce the cost of insurance for the maritime transport of grain and other important food products in Ukraine’s territorial waters, which will help to increase the volume of Ukrainian exports. The total coverage under the programme is USD 50 million. It is estimated that the proposed insurance mechanism will reduce the cost of grain insurance by about 2.5 percentage points of the insurance tariff on average, which will allow grain traders to save about UAH 100-140 per tonne of cargo, and will bring additional UAH 4 billion to agricultural producers.

Ukraine expects that similar insurance instruments will be extended to other types of exports in the future.