Public joint-stock company State Food-Grain Corporation could provide around UAH 800 million for forward purchases of wheat and corn in 2015.

"State Food-Grain Corporation will finance in advance some products that will be exported under the Chinese contract… the preliminary figure being discussed with China is around UAH 800 million," Agricultural Policy and Food Minister Oleksiy Pavlenko said.

He said that the corporation plans to buy wheat and corn under forward contracts.

As reported, the ministry earlier said that State Food-Grain Corporation will buy 300,000 tonnes of wheat and barley of the new harvest under forward contracts.

Previously, acting Board Chairman Valeriy Tomilenko said that State Food-Grain Corporation is considering the possibility of launching the forward purchasing campaign in spring 2015.

"We're looking and have almost have found a mechanism, which would allow us to work under the program. We've revised the contractor selection procedure, set the criteria and the sums for the programs and plan to support Ukrainian producers," acting Board Chairman Valeriy Tomilenko said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

Tomilenko said that the funds from the Chinese loan will be used in the forward campaign. The debts owed by farmers under forward contracts for the previous years to the corporation total over UAH 250 million.

In August 2010, the government decided to create the State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine. The corporation has a chain of branches, comprised of grain storage facilities, flourmills, fodder factories and a cereals factory. The 53 subdivisions of the corporation can store a total of 3.75 million tonnes of grain, which includes the grain handling capacities of Odesa and Mykolaiv ports of around 2.5 million tonnes of grain cargo per year.

The State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine in late 2012 received the first tranche of $1.5 billion from the Export-Import Bank of China. The funds were to be allocated to carry out spot and forward purchases of four million tonnes of grain which would be shipped to China.

China National Machinery Industry Complete Engineering Corporation (CMCEC) is the operator under the contract, which was signed for a period of 15 years.

The corporation plans to export 3.5 million tonnes of grain by late 2015 under the Chinese contract.