OREANDA-NEWS. March 17, 2014. Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Ihor Shvaika met with Mr. Zhang Xiyun, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People's Republic of China to Ukraine.

During the meeting, the Minister stressed the importance for Ukraine of further cooperation with China within the grain contracts, and search for new areas of work. In particular, Ihor Shvaika has emphasized that Ukraine confirms its intention to work with Chinese partners and increase the pace of work, as it was in 2013, during which the turnover between the two countries, compared with 2012, increased by 410.4 million US and reached 682 million US.

"Trade- economic and investment cooperation is the key one for our bilateral relationship. In particular, we are interested in attracting Chinese investment to joint projects in the field of veterinary medicine and animal husbandry, mushroom and crop production, fisheries and land reclamation," the Minister said. Also Ihor Shvaika stressed the readiness of the Ukrainian side to do everything possible to minimize the number of problematic issues that arise during the implementation of the contract.

From his part, Ambassador Zhang Xiyun has confirmed that Chinese side intends to continue the strategic partnership between the two countries within the framework of the signed contracts. According to the Ambassador, a group of Chinese experts will soon come to Kyiv. They will discuss with the Ukrainian side cooperation in the grain industry and possible new directions of work. Also, Mr. Ambassador, on behalf of Chinese business representatives said that all bottlenecks that arise or may arise in the course of contracts’ implementation should be settled through bilateral consultations and only through negotiations between the parties to the contract, and that the break in the relationship, which was caused by the political situation in Ukraine, ended. Thus, China is ready to cooperate with the new Ukrainian government.

The meeting ended with an agreement to hold the next (fourth) session of the Sub-Commission on cooperation in agriculture, which will be held at the International Agricultural Exhibition "Agro-2014" in June 2014.