UEEX and the American Chamber of Commerce closely cooperate in the direction of the development of the wood market

The Ukrainian Energy Exchange is in constant contact with its foreign partners, one of which is the American Chamber of Commerce (ACC). UEEX and ACC cooperate fruitfully in the direction of the development of commodity markets in Ukraine, in particular, the wood market and the exchange trading of this resource.

One of the elements of the joint activity was the holding of the webinar "Untreated timber market in Ukraine", which took place on November 30 and gathered about 70 participants, most of whom were foreign companies in the forest industry.

The speaker of the event, Deputy CEO of UEEX Kostiantyn Shevchuk told the participants about the forest fund of Ukraine and its structure, introduced the statistics of the wood market and its reform, the stages and system of wood trade, the use of untreated timber in energy projects.

In particular, Kostiantyn Shevchuk said that Ukraine ranks 9th in Europe in terms of the area of forests, which is a significant potential for the development of the industry. 80% of forest plantations are in state ownership. In July 2021, a reform was carried out, the result of which was the creation of the State Enterprise "Forests of Ukraine", the separation of administrative functions from production functions and the sale of wood exclusively on licensed trading platforms and commodity exchanges. All purchase and sale operations are under the supervision of the NSSMC. In general, thanks to the changes made, the timber market has become transparent, exchange trading as a resource is competitive and accessible to everyone, both residents and non-residents. Sales volumes increased. Thus, at UEEX, more untreated timber was sold in 9 months of the current year than in the entire year of 2022.

"Exchange trade in wood in Ukraine has reached world standards. In many ways, this became possible thanks to cooperation with foreign partners, with whom we are in constant dialogue.  Modern effective trading tools, additional services such as weighted average price indices, analytics module and post-trade service have been implemented on the exchange. In the period from January 2022 to September 2023, more than 2,300 timber trades were conducted on the UEEX, as a result of which 25,400 contracts were concluded. 5.47 million cubic meters of wood were sold for 435.3 million US dollars", Kostiantyn Shevchuk emphasized.

He also noted that timber auctions at the UEEX are open to all interested parties. In addition to Ukrainian enterprises, companies from Turkey, Poland and other EU countries participate in them. At the end of the event, Kostiantyn Shevchuk answered the questions that interested the webinar participants.