The roundtable on "The Transport Infrastructure of the Grain Market, Matching the Potential of the Sector," which was organized by the Center for Transport Strategies (CFTS), took place in Odesa on May 29 as part of the Agrologistics international exhibition.

The roundtable was attended by representatives of companies such as TIS-Grain, EFI-Trans, Ramburs, CSS, ITC Group, Meru Trans, Transmash, and International Legal Services (Interlegal), as well as by a representative of the State Regulatory Policy and Entrepreneurship Service.

Andrii Tovstopyat, an analyst with the Center for Transport Strategies, said at the roundtable that grain production in Ukraine would increase by about 43% from 46.2 million tons in the 2012/2013 marketing year to 66.3 million tons in the 2017/2018 marketing year. "We expect grain production to increase by 20 million tons in the 2017/2018 marketing year," said the expert.

According to him, domestic consumption of grain will increase by an average of 2% per year.

"This means that consumption of grain by the population will either be stable or reduce slightly while consumption of feed grain will increase," said Tovstopyat.

According to him, domestic consumption of grain in Ukraine will increase by 3 million tons in five years while grain exports will increase by 60%. The expert also added that the nominal capacity for transshipment of grain at Ukrainian ports is 44.1 million tons per year and that the real capacity is about 39 million tons. The storage capacity of port elevators is 2 million tons.