Business Week: Food prices are the same as in Europe, and butter is the most expensive product for export

Yulia Svyrydenko traveled to the USA and presented new projects in the field of minerals, Gennady Butkevych is rebranding Aerok, the dollar is predicted to significantly depreciate, and butter and juice are the best goods that Ukraine sells for export. Read about this and much more in the latest business review of the week from LIGA.net .

Gennady Butkevych creates a new brand at the confiscated Aerok factory

The former Aerok plants, which were one of the largest producers of aerated concrete structures in Ukraine before the full-scale war, will return to the building materials market from June 2025 under a new brand.

Trident Geoinvest Ukraine, a company from the BGV group, bought out Aerok for almost UAH 1.9 billion in December 2024.

The products will now be produced under the Poriston brand (from the English words porous and stone).

The company plans not only to regain lost market share, but also to increase it by working on expanding production and launching new capacities.

It has two plants in the Kyiv region (in Berezan and Obukhiv), which are capable of annually producing over 1.15 million cubic meters of aerated concrete blocks of various types – wall, partition, U-blocks, reinforced products, and thermal insulation.

Ukraine and the US are preparing the first projects within the framework of the mineral agreement

Ukraine and the United States are working on launching the US-Ukrainian Reconstruction Investment Fund, which should become operational by the end of the year. This was announced by First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Yulia Svyrydenko on June 4 following a trip to Washington.

The first meeting of the fund's board of directors is scheduled for the end of July 2025. During this meeting, committees, project selection procedures, and the start-up capital and investment strategy for the coming years should be approved.

The Ukrainian side also proposed expanding the fund's investment mandate to include support for Ukrainian companies in the defense industry. The US side has received a positive response and openness to this direction.

Another important issue was the expansion of military risk insurance. As Svirydenko noted, American companies are ready to invest, but need guarantees.

Kropyvnytskyi graphite deposit included in the list of strategic projects of the European Union

The European Union is counting on graphite from the Kirovohrad region.

On June 4, the European Commission approved the first list of 13 strategic projects located outside the EU, aimed at diversifying the sources of supply of strategic raw materials and increasing the economic security of the European Union. The European Commission's press service reported this.

Six of these projects are located in countries with strategic partnerships with the EU (Ukraine, Canada, Kazakhstan, Norway, Serbia, Zambia), two are in overseas territories (Greenland and New Caledonia), and the rest are in Brazil, Madagascar, Malawi, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

The Ukrainian project is the Balakhiv graphite deposit. The project is promoted by Rozvytok Pobuzhzhya LLC, a member of the BGV group, and is aimed at supplying battery-grade graphite.

Butter is the most expensive Ukrainian export product

In May 2025, the average value of Ukrainian agricultural exports was $432.7 per ton, reported Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Vitaliy Koval. For comparison: in 2024, this figure was at $315 per ton.

The total volume of Ukrainian agricultural exports in May amounted to 4.69 million tons, worth $2.029 billion.

According to the minister, the development of deep agro-processing is a priority for the ministry. In May, exports of such goods showed the highest price per ton:

• butter — $7,077 per ton ($20.5 million for 2,900 tons);

• juices (fruit and vegetable) — $2,213 per ton ($19.8 million for almost 9,000 tons).

The largest buyers of Ukrainian agricultural products were Turkey, the Netherlands, and Poland.

Mini-CHP from a meat producer

The Lviv company "Halytska Svizhyna", one of the leading meat retail chains in western Ukraine, has launched its own cogeneration plant.

The mini-CHP plant was manufactured by the Latvian company Fortes, known as a manufacturer of innovative power plants based on biomass gasification, to order for the enterprise. The launch ceremony of the plant in Lviv was attended, among others, by Fortes CEO Armands Zemitis.

The capacity of the cogeneration plant reaches 450 kW of electrical energy and about 600 kW of thermal energy, the cost is 300,000 euros. 75% of the financing was provided by a loan from Oschadbank, another 25% – own investments of the company "Halytska Svezhyna".

Meat production is one of the most energy-intensive sectors. The launch of a mini-CHP will allow the company "Halytska Svezhyna" to:

→ work without stopping during power outages;

→ reduce the load on the national energy system;

→ reduce costs – electricity production is 40% cheaper than from city networks;

→ use excess heat for heating and water heating.

Turkish Airlines to cancel some flights from Moscow due to drone attacks

Turkish Airlines has begun negotiations with the Russian side regarding the possibility of transferring some of its flights from Moscow's Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo and Domodedovo airports to Pulkovo airport in St. Petersburg. The Russian newspaper Vedomosti reports this, citing its own sources.

This decision is due to frequent closures of airspace over Moscow due to drone attacks, which creates risks for regular air traffic.

According to the publication, another major foreign airline has also made a similar request. This is probably Emirates, whose president previously suggested revising the flight schedule to Russia.

From Moscow, the airline operates 61 flights per week to Antalya, 44 to Istanbul, 7 to Bodrum, and 11 to Dalaman.

Ukraine will receive 1.3 billion euros for its own weapons production according to the "Danish model" this year

In 2025, Ukraine will receive 1.3 billion euros under the "Danish model" to finance its own weapons production. This was announced by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense following a meeting between the heads of defense agencies of Ukraine and Denmark, Rustem Umerov and Troels Lund Poulsen.

As a result of the negotiations, Ukraine and Denmark agreed to transfer the first tranche of 428 million euros from Denmark, Sweden, Canada, Norway and Iceland.

These funds will "in the near future" be used to produce Ukrainian artillery, strike drones, missiles, and anti-tank weapons, the Ministry of Defense notes.

In total, in 2025, defense support for Ukraine under the "Danish model" will increase to 1.3 billion euros, and part of the funds will be directed from revenues from frozen Russian assets.

Wall Street predicts that the dollar will fall in price

Wall Street banks, including Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co., expect a significant weakening of the US dollar due to lower interest rates, a slowing economy, and the tariffs and taxes pursued by President Donald Trump, Bloomberg reports.

Morgan Stanley predicts the dollar index will fall 9% to 91 by mid-2026. JPMorgan advises betting on a strengthening yen, euro and Australian dollar. Goldman Sachs warns that changes in US tax policy towards foreign investors could further weaken confidence in American assets.

The dollar had already fallen 0.5% against the currencies of the "big ten" countries on Monday, and the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index approached its lowest since July 2023.

Morgan Stanley experts believe that the currency market has entered a long-term dollar decline and predict: the euro will rise to $1.25 (from the current $1.14), the pound sterling to $1.45, and the yen will strengthen from 143 to 130 per dollar.

The yield on 10-year US Treasury bonds is also forecast to fall to 4% by the end of 2025 and further decline in 2026 amid an expected 175 basis point cut in the Fed rate.

Ukrainian seaport signs agreement with Maersk to join the "Middle Corridor"

The Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi Sea Port has signed a memorandum of cooperation with APM Terminals Poti, a division of Maersk, which owns Georgia's largest seaport in Poti. This was announced by the port's director, Oksana Kiktenko.

This is the first international cooperation document for a Ukrainian port aimed at developing the "Middle Corridor" – an international transport route that should become an alternative to traditional cargo delivery routes between Asia and Europe.

The memorandum plans to launch a new ferry route between two private seaports, as well as build a road-rail ferry complex.

This project is being implemented by the new owner of the Bilhorod-Dniester port, taking into account the technical requirements for handling cargo from the "Middle Corridor".

Product prices in Ukraine have approached world prices – NBU

The National Bank of Ukraine acknowledged that food prices in Ukraine have come close to world prices, so it does not expect the loss of part of the harvest due to frost to have a significant impact on food inflation. This was discussed at a briefing on June 5.

The impact of weather conditions on this year's grain and other crop harvests may be worse than expected in current forecasts, the National Bank acknowledged. But it will be easier to contain food inflation, and the food shortage will be covered by imports.

"Our food prices have already come close, and for some products they even exceed prices in neighboring countries. Therefore, actually, due to this factor, we expect that we will be able to avoid a repetition of last year's significant surge in food inflation," explained Deputy Chairman of the NBU Serhiy Nikolaychuk.

National Bank Chairman Andriy Pyshny confirmed that the negative impact of weather conditions on the harvest is a risk to the inflation forecast. But a possible shortage of certain products could replace imports.

"There is [...] the possibility of covering the corresponding deficit through imports, if such a need arises. After all, in some places our domestic prices have already approached world prices, and in some positions they even exceed them," Pyshny said.

In its April inflation report, the NBU expected this year's grain harvest to be 61.7 million tons. At the same time, Minister of Agrarian Policy Vitaliy Koval said that in the worst-case scenario, the harvest in 2025 could decrease by 10% and amount to about 51 million tons after 56.7 million tons in 2024.