[Global Times special correspondent to Ukraine Wudok Global Times reporter Ni Hao] Odessa, a port city in southern Ukraine founded in the ancient Greek era, has long been regarded as a "window to the Black Sea".
In Ukraine, the "granary of Europe", Odessa's important function is the import and export of grain, which can be described as the "choke point".
However, as the Russian-Ukrainian military conflict entered the fourth week, the busy transaction and transportation scenes in the past were no longer, and the local area was full of slaughter.
Data map: On March 1, local time, two explosions occurred near the TV tower in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Ukraine's emergency services said five people were killed in the explosion.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs stated that the broadcast of Ukrainian 24 TV channels and 1+1 TV channels will be affected.
Odessa status quo: The port is dead silent
Andrei is a local who the Global Times reporter met when he visited Odessa in January.
The name Andrei is all too common in this Russian-speaking city.
Andre, 40, works in the same industry as many people in the area - food processing and exporting.
In January, he expressed his concern about the current situation to the Global Times reporter, fearing that once the Russian army launched an attack from Crimea, which is 200 nautical miles away, the port of Odessa would be doomed.
As Andrei expected, shortly after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian military conflict, according to the Ukrainian government's temporary wartime control measures, all food products were prohibited from exporting. Find out how the situation is progressing.
Standing on the steps of the famous "Potemkin Stairs", you can have a panoramic view of the port of Odessa.
Andre, who accompanied the Global Times reporter to watch the scenery in January, told reporters in a video chat that the port is now dead.
Only the large warehouses for storing grain by the port are constantly patrolled by the Coast Guard.
But at sea, people have seen Russian warships in the distance before, and many locals speculate that further fierce fighting may only be a matter of time.
Qu Bo, chairman of the Odessa Chinese Chamber of Commerce, is still residing in Odessa. In an interview on the 24th, he told the Global Times reporter that Ukraine's main ports for grain exports include Nanfang Port, Ilyichevsk Port, Nigeria The ports of Gulayev and Mariupol, the first two ports are both located in Odessa.
However, the above-mentioned major grain export ports in Ukraine are temporarily suspended, which has an impact on grain exports.
It is worth pondering that in 1794, Empress Catherine II of Tsarist Russia followed Peter the Great to build St. Petersburg and Odessa.
The queen believed her country needed a port on the Black Sea to expand trade with Europe.
Later history also verified the queen's vision.
The 141-hectare port of Odessa is one of the largest ports on the Black Sea-Azov Sea.
It has 54 well-equipped piers with a total length of more than 9 kilometers, which can accommodate giant freighters up to 330 meters in length, 40 meters in width and less than 13 meters in draft.
Andrei once proudly told reporters that one out of every ten people on the planet is eating wheat grains shipped from Odessa.
Ukraine, with its vast fertile black soil, is considered the world's breadbasket, accounting for 12% of global wheat exports and 13% of corn exports.
There are 7 excellent ports in the whole Odessa region, and trade with more than 200 ports in more than 60 countries.
As the largest port city in Ukraine, the port of Odessa has an annual handling capacity of 21 million tons of dry cargo and 25 million tons of liquid cargo, and the annual throughput of the container terminal exceeds 900,000 TEUs.
Global consumers will pay more for bread
After the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Ukrainian port cities, including Odessa, were bombed by the Russian army, and Ukraine immediately gave up exporting food crops.
The "Wall Street Journal" reported that the situation in Russia and Ukraine caused immediate turmoil in the futures market for grain prices. In the first week of the war between Russia and Ukraine on the Chicago Board of Trade, wheat futures prices rose 12%, the highest weekly since July 2012. gain.
Ukraine used to export more than 700,000 tons of wheat per month from February to April on average, and in August and September, the monthly export volume will reach 3.64 million tons to 4.5 million tons.
However, at present, most of Ukraine's port operations have been suspended. The Sea of Azov in the east of the Crimean Peninsula has been blocked by the Russian army, and ships anchored at coastal ports cannot leave the port.
Andrei said that if the war does not stop, the port city of Odessa will gradually come to a standstill, which is obviously not good news for the lives of the locals.
But as a local who has been in this business for 20 years, Andrei also doesn't think Odessa will decline as a city, because he firmly believes that this global food inflation pressure, most people do not want to continue.
In fact, as Andrei expected, with the escalation of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the global wheat price has soared to a new high in the past 14 years, forcing consumers around the world to pay more for bread, even bakery owners in the United States and Canada. And flour manufacturers are also miserable.
The reduction in the export of wheat from Russia and Ukraine will make global flour manufacturers go to Canada to "grab" wheat, which makes the local flour mills in the United States and Canada, the major wheat growing countries in North America, face more intense competition.
The surge in wheat prices has also put bakery owners and flour manufacturers "under pressure".
Egypt and Indonesia each account for more than 15% of Ukraine's wheat exports. Egypt is the world's largest wheat importer. For Egypt, which is politically turbulent, soaring food prices will undoubtedly only worsen the situation.
How does it affect China
Zhang Hong, a researcher at the Institute of Russian, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview with the Global Times that Odessa is located on the southwestern coastline of Ukraine, and the hinterland is Ukraine's vast agricultural area. The cluster has become an important grain export base for Ukraine, and China's grain imports to Ukraine also mainly pass through these ports.
China's grain imports from Ukraine are mainly corn.
Relevant data show that nearly 1/3 of China's imported corn comes from Ukraine.
The relevant person in charge of the domestic Joyvio Beidahuang Group recently stated that major grain export ports such as Odessa Port in Ukraine have been blocked.
The import of corn and sunflower seeds from Ukraine by Chinese companies has been forced to suspend, and these companies have turned to other suppliers for grain sources.
However, Zhang Hong said that China is also an important corn producer in the world, with a supply gap of only 10%.
The largest source of China's corn imports in 2021 is the United States, accounting for 70%, and Ukraine's imports are only about 30%.
Zhang Hong believes that Ukraine's corn trade will not have a significant impact on China's corn market demand for the time being.
"Ukraine's annual spring ploughing starts in March and lasts for one month. The export of corn is from September to January of the following year." Zhang Hong told the Global Times reporter that Ukraine's corn exports currently come from last year's harvest. And the export has been basically completed.
Therefore, Ukraine and the countries that mainly import food from Ukraine are currently not too severely affected.
However, the number of Ukrainian refugees has exceeded 10 million, and the current spring ploughing has been affected, so the next year's food production, including corn and barley, will be significantly affected. "It is difficult to expect any large-scale trade with Ukraine this year. It is hard to say when the Russian-Ukrainian conflict will end.”
Zhang Hong said that as an important food supplier in the world, Ukraine's food supply in 2022-2023 may be greatly reduced, which will be a major loss to the world at that time.
At the same time, superimposed on the reduction of Russian fertilizer exports, starting from the second half of this year, the risk of a global food crisis will further increase, and further push up the level of international inflation.
For China, wheat, rice and other rations can be self-sufficient, and there is no security risk.
But corn could be affected.
Zhang Hong believes that, as a major producing country, China's corn demand can be adjusted from the international level, but the risk of rising import costs due to soaring prices will inevitably affect the operating costs of the domestic aquaculture industry.