SFGC pays $80 mln of interest for China loan in 2016

Public joint-stock company State Food-Grain Corporation in 2016 paid $80 of interest for the $1.5 billion loan issued by Export-Import Bank of China.

"We have a large financial burden. The company has many credits, and profit from operations, despite its large growth, covers payments on the credit only by 47%," acting Board Chairman Oleksandr Hryhorovych said on Rada TV Channel last week.

He said that in 2016 financial spending by the corporation grew by 14% compared to 2015, to over UAH 2 billion.

"This was first thanks to the increase of the interest rate for servicing of the Chinese loan by 2.6 times. Only last year we paid almost $80 million of interest. In addition, the increase of financial spending is linked to growth of the U.S. dollar exchange rate [to the hryvnia]. Foreign exchange loss last year totaled over UAH 1.6 billion," he said.

Hryhorovych said that in 2016 the key operating business segments of the company showed the upward pace. Revenue from elevator services came to UAH 498 million (69% up on 2015). Revenue from processing operations soared by 3.6 times, to UAH 948 million.

Trade with grain brings 955 of total operating income to the corporation. In 2016, sales revenue was UAH 797 million.

The government in August 2010 decided to create the State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine. The corporation has a chain of branches, comprised of grain storage facilities, flourmills, fodder factories and a cereals factory. The 53 subdivisions of the corporation can store a total of 3.75 million tonnes of grain, which includes the grain handling capacities of Odesa and Mykolaiv ports of some 2.5 million tonnes of grain cargo per year.

The public joint-stock company State Food-Grain Corporation in 2012 raised a government-secured loan of $1.5 billion from the Export-Import Bank of China for a 15-year project for grain export under trade agreements with China.

IC UAC according to Interfax-Ukraine.