March 5 2003, 13:31 Interfax-Ukraine

Ukraine will make grain intervention from state reserve

Ukraine's State Committee for Management of State Material Reserve (Derzhkomrezerv) plans to held in the first quarter of this year a competition for disbursement of 30,000 tonnes of milling grain, owned by the Committee.

Deputy Head of Derzhkomrezerv Volodymyr Omelyanchuk has said that more than 200 organisations already applied to participate in the competition, including some regional state administrations.

"There are a lot of applications for grain from the state reserve because of hard situation with milling wheat in the market," he said.

Ukrainian bakery plants had applied to government with a request to take measures to stabilise grain prices, the sharp growth of which was provoking increase in bread prices. In particular, they proposed to resort to grain interventions from the state reserve.

Since February 1 prices for flour in virtually all regions of Ukraine have increased almost 20 percent and now constitute 1,200 hryvnias for top grade flour (5.33 hryvnias = $1). Analysts said if the rates of price growth stay like this, the increase of bread prices - an extremely socialy important issue for Ukrainian society - will be indispensable.