Capital investments in the Ukrainian agricultural sector in 2022 amounted to $1.3 billion, which is 48% less compared to pre-war 2021, when they amounted to $2.5 billion, but the situation is much more complicated, wrote Alex Lissitsa, CEO of the IMC agricultural holding, on Facebook.

“Capital investments in our agricultural sector in 2022 amounted to $1.3 billion (compared to $2.5 billion in 2021), which is the highest figure since 2010. But we should not forget that most investments were made before the start of the war,” Lissitsa outlined the theses of his speech at the conference “Fields of Change: Determining the Path of Ukrainian Agriculture” held by the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club and AGCO Corporation in Brussels last week.

The CEO of IMC advised to pay attention to the market for the sale of agricultural machinery and equipment. According to his information, 10,006 units of equipment were sold in Ukraine in 2021, 3,681 units in 2022, of which 71%, or 2,622 units, in seven months. At the same time, only 1,483 units were sold in seven months of 2023.

"The trend is obvious," he added.

Commenting on the upcoming allocation of funds by the European Commission within the Ukraine Facility for the restoration of the Ukrainian economy, Lissitsa said that the EU will allocate about EUR40 billion for four years in the form of loans and guarantees and expects a cumulative effect from this program for private business.

“This is really a lot of money,” he wrote and expressed doubts that there are so many transparent companies with clear business ideas in Ukraine.

Lissitsa recalled that the directions for allocating funds will be formulated by the end of the year by the Ukrainian government and agreed upon with the EU, and advised preparing business projects now.

He expressed regret that representatives of international financial institutions, in particular commercial banks, did not say anything concrete about financing the existing needs of agribusiness, especially working capital for the 2024 sowing season and capital investments in the sector, including in value-added projects.

“We must admit that the work is just beginning, and we will continue to work with banks already in Kyiv. After all, the sowing season is very soon, and with such logistics costs as now, it’s really worth thinking about whether you need to sow or not,” summed up the CEO of IMC.