News
15.09.2008
Large increase in grain combine imports predicted for 2009-2015
Grain harvester imports in Ukraine are already up by 3.6 times
Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, September 9, 2008
KYIV - The director general of a large Kyiv-based agricultural supply company, Amaco Ukraine, Vitalii Skotsyk forecasts a large increase of imports of grain combines to Ukraine in 2009-2015. 'We expect the sales of this machinery in Ukraine to considerably grow year after year for at least five-seven years,' he said.
Skotsyk also said that in January-August 2008, Ukraine imported 2,884 grain combines exceeding the year 2007 import indicator by 3.6 times. At the same time, Skotsyk pointed to lack of the developed system of grain combine servicing in Ukraine.
The director general said that before the harvesting campaign of 2008 Ukraine had about 47,000 combines, most of which had significant operation period.
'This year, Ukraine launched the harvesting with 47,000 grain combines, of which, 80% were machines, whose operational period was 15-20 years,' he said. He said that this resulted in low quality indicators of the harvested grain.
'One of the problems we harvested low-quality grain is that the harvesting should last for 10-14 days, but we harvest for 1.5-2 months. Thus, the quality does not meet our expectations,' Skotsyk said. In particular, he said that according to forecasts of the Agriculture Policy Ministry, only 11% of the wheat will be bread wheat.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Amaco Ukraine is engaged in sale of imported farm machinery and spare parts to it. By September 5, farm enterprises harvested 43.475 million tons of crops.
