During his visit to Syria, Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Vitalii Koval met with the Syrian Agriculture Minister Dr Mohammad al-Ahmad.
“It was a very constructive meeting with our Syrian counterpart. We discussed a detailed list of goods that the country needs. First of all, Syria is interested in livestock products – meat and dairy products. Also wheat, barley, oil, sugar and flour. Under the Assad regime, there were very high duties on the supply of products to Syria in order to control imports and profit from them,” Vitaliy Koval said.
According to him, a joint working group will be set up at the level of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine and the Ministries of Economy and Trade and Agriculture of Syria to lift the duties on Ukrainian products and food.
In addition, the ministers discussed logistical ways to supply Ukrainian products to Syria and cooperation in the banking sector. They also identified the tasks that the two parties needed to work on to make trade between Ukraine and Syria as comfortable and easy as possible in the field of agricultural supply and food security.
Vitalii Koval noted that Syria was also interested in technology transfer from Ukraine. In particular, in the field of land reclamation and hydraulic engineering, as most of the country’s land needs irrigation. In addition, the parties discussed opportunities for mutual trade. From Ukraine it is wheat, barley, oil, sugar and flour. And from Syria it is nuts and fruits. (Government portal)