AGL 40.00 Decreased By ▼ -0.16 (-0.4%)
AIRLINK 129.53 Decreased By ▼ -2.20 (-1.67%)
BOP 6.68 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-0.15%)
CNERGY 4.63 Increased By ▲ 0.16 (3.58%)
DCL 8.94 Increased By ▲ 0.12 (1.36%)
DFML 41.69 Increased By ▲ 1.08 (2.66%)
DGKC 83.77 Decreased By ▼ -0.31 (-0.37%)
FCCL 32.77 Increased By ▲ 0.43 (1.33%)
FFBL 75.47 Increased By ▲ 6.86 (10%)
FFL 11.47 Increased By ▲ 0.12 (1.06%)
HUBC 110.55 Decreased By ▼ -1.21 (-1.08%)
HUMNL 14.56 Increased By ▲ 0.25 (1.75%)
KEL 5.39 Increased By ▲ 0.17 (3.26%)
KOSM 8.40 Decreased By ▼ -0.58 (-6.46%)
MLCF 39.79 Increased By ▲ 0.36 (0.91%)
NBP 60.29 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
OGDC 199.66 Increased By ▲ 4.72 (2.42%)
PAEL 26.65 Decreased By ▼ -0.04 (-0.15%)
PIBTL 7.66 Increased By ▲ 0.18 (2.41%)
PPL 157.92 Increased By ▲ 2.15 (1.38%)
PRL 26.73 Increased By ▲ 0.05 (0.19%)
PTC 18.46 Increased By ▲ 0.16 (0.87%)
SEARL 82.44 Decreased By ▼ -0.58 (-0.7%)
TELE 8.31 Increased By ▲ 0.08 (0.97%)
TOMCL 34.51 Decreased By ▼ -0.04 (-0.12%)
TPLP 9.06 Increased By ▲ 0.25 (2.84%)
TREET 17.47 Increased By ▲ 0.77 (4.61%)
TRG 61.32 Decreased By ▼ -1.13 (-1.81%)
UNITY 27.43 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-0.04%)
WTL 1.38 Increased By ▲ 0.10 (7.81%)
BR100 10,407 Increased By 220 (2.16%)
BR30 31,713 Increased By 377.1 (1.2%)
KSE100 97,328 Increased By 1781.9 (1.86%)
KSE30 30,192 Increased By 614.4 (2.08%)

PARIS: France’s president said on Friday he saw little chance of an agreement with Russia for now to get grain out the Ukrainian port of Odesa, but said there were talks to regenerate rail routes linking Odesa to the Danube in Romania as an alternative.

Ukraine’s inability to use its major deep-sea port, Odesa, because of Russia’s military incursion has led to a jump in global food prices and warnings by the United Nations of hunger in poorer countries that rely heavily on imported grain.

Russia denies it is the cause of the problem and blames Kyiv for failure to get grain ships out of Odesa. The United Nations is trying to broker a deal to resume Ukraine’s sea exports in return for facilitating Russian food and fertilizer exports, but that would need Moscow’s green light.

“We have to talk with Russia on food security and it (discussions) can be justified by liaising directly with the UN secretary general to get grains out of Odesa,” Macron told BFM TV on his way back from Ukraine.

“But I don’t believe a lot in this path, because I already had talks a few weeks ago with President (Vladimir) Putin, but he didn’t want to accept a UN resolution on this subject.”

After holding discussions with his Ukrainian, German, Italian and Romanian counterparts in Kyiv on Thursday, Macron told broadcaster TF1 that options were being looked at to revamp a rail route from Odesa to the Danube river in Romania.

Romania has been one of the alternative routes used to export Ukrainian grain. “Odesa is a few dozen kilometres from Romania, and through Romania (we would) be able to access the Danube and the railway,” Macron said. “We are in the process of creating a kind of connection point where we could export this grain much more strongly, quickly and massively than we do today.”

A diplomatic source aware of the idea said the initiative would see grains eventually moved to the Black Sea port of Constanta where they could then be exported on larger vessels. Macron said Paris would send experts to help Bucharest as it ramps up investment for the scheme.

Ukraine aims to use road, river and rail connections to increase its monthly grain exports to around 2 million tonnes, but this remains well below pre-war volumes of up to 6 million.

Comments

Comments are closed.