The largest metallurgical company in South Korea began purchasing grain in Ukraine
Posco International Corp., a trading unit specializing in the grain business of South Korean steel conglomerate Posco, imported 68,000 tonnes of feed wheat from Ukraine last week in partnership with the country's largest feed grain importer, Nonghyup Feed.
Of the total, 41 thousand tons were imported through the Ukrainian Grain Terminal, built by a trading company in September last year in Ukraine. This is the first import of feed grains from an overseas grain terminal of a Korean company.
Korea uses 3.43 million tons of wheat every year, but its wheat production is less than 20,000 tons, less than 1 percent of its need.
The chairman of the Posco metallurgical company Choi Jong Woo took the initiative to develop the food business as part of 100 group reform projects in 2018. In September last year, as part of this initiative, a grain terminal was built in Ukraine with a capacity of 2.5 million tons.
With the growing instability in the global grain market, the company is striving to turn the food business into the next engine of growth and create a stable food procurement system to ensure the country's food security, ”said Joo Si-bo, President and CEO of Posco International.
Faced with major challenges in securing adequate food and grain supplies amid protectionist restrictions caused by the pandemic and disruptions to logistics, a total of 22 countries, including some of the world's largest rice sellers, have partially or completely stopped their exports .