"Grain initiative" should be expanded - opinion

The head of the press service of the US State Department, Ned Price, emphasized the position of the United States of America regarding the need to continue and expand the Black Sea "grain initiative". "We continue to call on Russia to do what is simply the right thing: to agree to restore and eventually expand the Black Sea Grain Initiative so that people around the world can continue to get the food they need," the State Department said in a statement on its official website.

According to the official, the G20 countries need to seek from Russia the preservation and expansion of the "grain agreement".

It should be noted that the notification of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation states that Russia will agree to the continuation of the Black Sea "grain initiative" only if the interests of its agricultural producers are taken into account.

"The Russian side emphasized that the continuation of the package agreement on grain is possible only if the interests of Russian producers of agricultural products and fertilizers are taken into account in terms of unimpeded access to world markets," Reuters quoted the corresponding statement.

As you know, the agreement concluded with the mediation of the UN and Turkey should be extended this month. Earlier, the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Yuriy Vaskov emphasized that Ukraine plans to discuss with Turkey and the UN the issue of extending the grain agreement for at least one year, including Mykolaiv ports.

"... we will send an official proposal on the need to work on the extension of the agreement. We will ask to extend it not for 120 days, but at least for a year, because the Ukrainian and global agricultural market should be able to plan these volumes in the long term," the government official was quoted as saying by the media.

Also, Ukraine will insist on increasing the number of inspection groups in order to eliminate the accumulation of vessels awaiting inspection. After all, due to the actions of Russia, a queue of more than 150 vessels formed in the inspection zone in the Bosphorus. The vast majority wait several weeks for the inspection.

We will remind that since August 1, 2022, Ukraine has exported almost 23 million tons of Ukrainian food through the ports of "Great Odesa". Due to the slowdown in the work of the "grain corridor", the world does not receive at least 3 million tons every month.