Wheat is hopefully coming out of Ukraine. Is this good news for the Philippines?

This week the UN brokered a deal with Russia and Ukraine to start shipping wheat from the region again.

Apart from the logistical problems of avoiding mines around the Black Sea ports will this initiative last.

The UN and Turkey are trying to broker an agreement to allow Ukrainian exports to resume, which would require Russia to lift the blockade and Ukraine to remove mines from its ports.

Ukrainian officials say they can't trust Russia not to use the agreement to gain a military advantage.

The Russian bombing of the ports reported over the weekend does not help the situation.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has 30 million tons of grain sitting in silos. That accounts for more than half of the available storage space even before the new harvest begins this summer.

Meanwhile, how will this embargo lifting affect us living in SE Asia?

Some countries were far more reliant on Ukraine for those products prior to the blockade.

Those include some of the world's most populous countries: at least 25% of wheat exports in Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, and Pakistan came from Ukraine.

Ukraine-Philippines in 2020, Ukraine exported $172M to Philippines.

The main products that Ukraine exported to the Philippines were Wheat and meslin ($119M), Iron or non-alloy steel; semi-finished products thereof ($17.6M), and Cigars, cheroots, cigarillos, and cigarettes; of tobacco or of tobacco substitutes ($9.29M).

In 2020 Russia also exported over $120million worth of cereals to the Philippines and with the country’s favorable relations with Moscow one assumes wheat from Russia will continue to be delivered too.

So hopefully the Philippines will start to see Wheat from Ukraine arriving at its ports in the next few months.

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