Traditionally, annually at the end of May Odessa turns from a resort city of Ukraine into a business platform on the Black Sea coast, where representatives of the grain and maritime industries bring together from all over the world. Of course, 2019 was not an exception, and on May 30-31 the XVIII international conference "Grain & Maritime Days in Odessa" brought together more than 300 delegates from 26 countries. APK-Inform Agency and the International law firm Interlegal became the organizers of the event.
SGS Ukrainewas the Exclusive Sponsor of the event, and Petkus Group of companies— Technology Sponsor. Also, Maersk, SocTrade, COFCO International, GrainExpo OU, and the Group of companies Weight-measuring systems LLC were the sponsors of the conference. The companies Dealex, Nortrop, and Codeska acted as Partners of the conference.
The first conference day focused on the global issues — macroeconomics, the prospects of development of the global grain market in the new season, as well as the current conditions and challenges of the maritime industry. In particular, in the section "Macroeconomics" Oleg Ustenko (The Bleyzer Foundation), William H. Meyers (FAPRI), Dimitar Bogov (EBRD), Suvra Chakraborty (AMC Overseas FZE), and Viktor Sheremeta (Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Trade of Ukraine) discussed the global economic trends and macroeconomic events in Ukraine, as well as the political and economic features of business development in the country, development trends of the Ukrainian grain market, and its positions on the global market, the Ukrainian economy in terms of the global trends. In addition, foreign speakers shared their experience on how business can build international relations with the prospective consumer markets. Speaking on the sidelines of the forum, S.Chakraborty noted that the growing interest of Ukrainian agricultural traders in developing of communication with buyers of Ukrainian grains from Southeast Asia, North Africa and India became the positive trend of the conference. In the future conference projects, the organizers plan to pay more attention to more close negotiation of product suppliers and consumers.
Within frames of the second main section — "Global grain perspective" — representatives of international grain trading companies, such as Agritel International, PETKUS Technologie GmbH, EMEA S&P Global Platts, etc., announced the results of the almost completed grain season-2018/19 in the world, and shared their expectations for the new MY, as well as presented the price formation methods on the global grain market. Oleg Onischenko (SGS Ukraine) reported about the quality and phytosanitary features of soft wheat, corn and soybeans of the harvest-2018, while the representative of JSC Lithuanian Railways in Ukraine shared the experience of successful railway transportation and noted that the IX Transport corridor that connects Ukraine and Lithuania, provides the direct opportunity to enter the large-scale market of Scandinavian countries through the port of Klaip?da (State Enterprise Klaip?da State Seaport Authority).
The parallel section "International business by new rules" provided the platform for the leading lawyers of Interlegal — Marta Sverdlykivska, Daria Liashenko and Victoria Russeva, under moderation of Irina Voyevodina, Partner of Interlegal. The experts focused on the following main questions: how to restructure a business in the BEPS terms (bank account management, substance, corporate structures), where is it profitable to register a company and keep on the safe side, as well as how business can use benefits of the foreign exchange liberalization.
Also, in one of the parallel sections the experts of yacht practice of Interlegal reported the results of the expertise on purchasing of new yachts.