Ukraine hopes to expand agricultural cooperation with China

KIEV - Kiev attaches great importance to agricultural cooperation with China and hopes to expand the scale of their bilateral collaboration, Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Olexiy Pavlenko said on Tuesday.

"The People's Republic of China is one of the priority partners of Ukraine in the field of agriculture," said Pavlenko, referring to the fifth session of the Ukraine-China subcommittee for cooperation in agriculture, which was held in Beijing last week.

Although agricultural trade between the two countries has been growing rapidly in recent months, currently Ukraine has only tapped 7.5 percent of its potential for agricultural exports to China, Pavlenko said.

He stressed that Ukraine is interested in boosting and diversifying its exports to China by selling grain, sunflower oil, dairy products, meat, confectionery goods and fruits.

According to Ukraine's official statistics, agricultural trade turnover between the two countries stood at $932 million last year, and reached $832.4 million in the first half of this year.