September 11 2003, 15:31 UNIAN

Kuchma blames food market crisis on former government and foreign traders and speculates about clumsy grain import campaign

President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma believes that the food crisis, arisen on Ukrainian food market in June and July this year, must be blamed to the previous government, headed by Anatoly Kinakh. He told this to Russian newspaper Izvestia in an interview, UNIAN news agency reported.

Kuchma told the newspaper's reporter that former government "didn't play the role it had to play, though it had to support the price in the market through state reserve and to buy at least two million tonnes of grain. We would then have supported Ukrainian producer, so the grain had not been bought from him at 60 or 70 hryvnias per tonne." [5.33 hryvnias = $1]

Kuchma said that eight grain traders had worked last year on Ukrainian grain market, "none of which was Ukrainian. The foreign traders bought, kept for a certain while and re-sold [the grain] with thee hundred percent profitability. It was our elementary shot in the blue. But it should have been given a thought in February and March. We are still living by illusions. Some of our officials were thinking that market would regulate everything itself. But nothing is being done so far without interference of state".

Answering the question of how Ukraine is going to survive this year, he said: "Well, we'll make it. You know how it was in 1999 - we harvested 24 million [tonnes of grain]. But now we'll have much more. We've got high crops of maize and sunflower. And the bread [grain] is something one and a half million tonne in shortage below the norm. We'll buy a million tonnes in Russia, but this should not have been treated as a tragedy. No drums should have been beaten about this. But we've made quite a piece of work from this, and are now reaping the fruits of our elementary stupidity".

According to Ukraine's Vice Prime Minister for Agriculture Ivan Kyrylenko, Ukrainian government is planning to buy up to 2 million tonnes of grain abroad till December this year.

According to conclusions of Ukraine's Anti-Monopoly Committee, grain traders were not guilty in the crisis, arisen this year in Ukrainian food market. According to the Committee, there are more than 1,500 grain traders working in Ukrainian grain market, of which 557 have been performing export operations with grain. Out of this number, the total share of the 5 largest grain exporters has not exceeded 32 percent, which testifies of the absence of monopolisation on the country's grain market.