Argentine sunflower is pushing Ukrainian sunflower out of the markets of Bulgaria and Romania, Panama cancels the concession of a Hong Kong operator, while Ukrainian officials for the third year in a row are carrying the same PowerPoint presentation about the port of Chornomorsk around Warsaw, Brussels, and Istanbul—and all of this at taxpayers’ expense.
Three news items worth knowing
- A flow of Argentine sunflower is heading to Bulgaria: first one bulk carrier with 50 thousand tons, then ten more of the same. It is difficult to explain unambiguously why Bulgarians are refusing Ukrainian sunflower so much that they import it from almost the other end of the world. But the signal is obvious: Ukrainian oilseed products are beginning to lose to competitors on certain parameters, and this will already be reflected in cargo volumes in Ukrainian ports.
- Maersk and MSC have taken over the management of terminals at the entrances to the Panama Canal after the Supreme Court of Panama annulled the long-term concessions of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison. The country’s president, J.R. Mulino, assured that this is not expropriation, but a temporary mechanism until a new international tender is held. The lesson is simple: even the most powerful concession scheme can be broken if there is political will and an understanding that officials initially work for themselves.
- On March 9, a presentation of the concession project for the First and Container Terminals at the port of Chornomorsk took place in Istanbul. The event was aimed at strategic investors, investment funds, financial institutions, and insurance companies. The organizer is the Ministry for Development of Communities and Territories of Ukraine. Another trip. Another presentation of the same idea.
Argentina advances—Ukraine loses ground
With the Bulgarian news, everything is quite clear. This is a signal that Ukrainian grain, which is currently the basis of the existence of domestic ports, is losing ground to competitors from other parts of the world in certain positions. At the same time, three dry cargo ships with sunflower from Argentina are already heading to Romania. Experts predict that the turn of Ukrainian import substitution in Europe will reach corn, rapeseed, and soybeans.
It is symbolic that in the same year Bulgaria is investing about 7 million euros in the development of its own ports—in order to approach European standards of speed for combined transport and zero emissions.
While Kyiv discusses concessions, the neighbors are simply building.
Panama: when a concession turns against officials
The Panamanian case clearly illustrates: a “shadow” concession business for decades ahead is not eternal. Even a very carefully constructed scheme of withdrawing state assets under the guise of a concession can be dismantled. The main thing is the presence of political will. What happened in Panama is a mirror for Ukraine, where similar mechanisms are also not unfamiliar.
Concession No. 3: why sell what does not exist
The news about the third concession in the port of Chornomorsk is the most surprising. The first two concessions in Ukrainian ports remain deeply problematic and unprofitable. No one has yet given an answer to what exactly concessionaires will load, who will transport the cargo and where, and how the new concession will affect those that are already effectively not working.
These first concessions are currently indeed idle in anticipation of the end of the war. But answers to the basic questions—what is the cargo base, who is the operator, what is the logistics model—have still not been given. Instead, there is a new presentation in a new capital.
Chronology of wastefulness
This concession story began a year and a half ago—and “coincided” with the arrival at the Ministry of Development of a dozen new deputy ministers. Several of them immediately aggressively began to explore the topic of the “empty port of Chornomorsk.”
It is worth recalling the context: in 2025, Ukrainian seaports handled 82.2 million tons of cargo—more than 15 million tons (14.6%) less than the year before. Azovstal is destroyed, the Illich plant is destroyed, there is practically no metal for export, no fertilizers, no transit. But there is an insatiable desire of ministerial clerks to report to the whole world about a “free piece of port land.”
Warsaw, 2025. The first conference. A hundred managers from Ukraine and Europe came to listen to the fact that they must hire almost 1,200 employees with unknown salaries, unknown cargo, and unknown processes, pay unknown taxes, and not exit the project for 40 years. Hotels, business flights, conference venues with European per diems—hundreds of thousands of dollars from the state budget. After the event, they solemnly announced 40 applicants for the concession, without naming a single specific name.
September 2025. The first meeting of the Competition Commission to determine the investor. It consisted of 21 state members. Of the 18 present, the majority were men of conscription age, preserved from mobilization by state positions. The question of the fact that ports are operating at half capacity was not included in the agenda.
By the end of November 2025 — five meetings of the commission. Five times they considered “projects of the project”: competition strategies, instructions for applicants, the size of the registration fee. The question: why then were applicants “brainwashed” in Warsaw if six months later they were only beginning to discuss how to conduct this competition at all?
Brussels, January 2026. A new presentation. Under the slogan: “The implementation of the project is intended to strengthen Ukraine’s integration into global logistics markets and create additional opportunities for trade development.” One of the deputy ministers stated this without explaining what “global logistics” is, when there is no transit through Ukrainian ports at all, and global supply chains through Ukraine will not recover for decades.
Istanbul, March 2026. A new presentation of the same concession. And one involuntarily recalls a phrase from an Odesa joke: “Where should we go again with this cake?”
What they sell to foreigners and what they keep silent about
Foreigners are not shown empty piers, lack of cargo, shortage of trained personnel, or the war nearby. Instead—plenty of paper “investment chatter,” promises of unlimited access to enormous billion-dollar profits, whispers about “new horizons” and “changes in the investment climate.”
What they forget to say: stable profit for 40 years is possible only where the rules for business and for the authorities operate consistently for at least those same 40 years. In Ukraine, however, rules are applied selectively. Courts make the necessary decisions.
Regulators suddenly find violations where everything was fine yesterday. A port or pier can be blocked for months by papers from the SBU, the State Bureau of Investigations, or the prosecutor’s office. And then—a hint: want to work, pay; want to develop, share ownership. This is not an investment environment—it is a system of controlled milking of businesses.
There are also purely industry-specific risks that presentations remain silent about. Ukraine’s port business is 100% dependent on Ukrainian Railways, which has been balancing on the verge of bankruptcy for years and changes tariffs almost monthly.
Ports are subject to missile strikes, and the central government is already hinting that owners must independently provide themselves with air defense means.
Heads of ports and port administrations change with kaleidoscopic speed. The current head of the AMPU came from the orbit of an influential oligarch without a single day of not only port, but even general transport experience.
What experts say
The redistribution of cargo base in favor of one concessionaire is not a neutral process. It has direct consequences for existing port operators, logistics companies, and national investors who have already invested in the development of port infrastructure in other ports of Ukraine. Conditions under which one section of a port receives the status of a priority or strategic project with special state support may lead to distortion of the competitive environment and asymmetric working conditions in the market. If the growth of one facility occurs at the expense of redistribution of flows from others, this undermines trust in long-term investment decisions and encourages business caution regarding new investments in port infrastructure.
— From an appeal of industry transport associations
What is all this for?
Logically, financially, and in terms of corruption, the picture looks like this.
The first option: there is a direct request from a local oligarch to “capture” good but currently empty state piers for next to nothing—the ministry officials are merely fulfilling the order, creating paper justification.
The second: the same, but for a still unknown Chinese investor, who, as a rule, generously rewards officials in deals involving state property of foreign countries.
The third: the concession topic is used for personal tourism business at state expense—misleading foreigners is profitable because no one is held accountable for spending on these trips.
Instead of a conclusion: Omelyan’s case is still in courts
It is worth recalling: court cases regarding the previous Chinese “investment project of the century” from Minister Omelyan are still ongoing. Billions were buried in the sand of the Pivdennyi port. The state did not receive a single useful hryvnia from the project. No principled assessment has been made of what the then minister did with port officials.
It is pointless to hope that this time it will be different. Officials, at taxpayers’ expense, habitually take an empty idea, carry it around the world for years, and then calmly retreat into warm, paid oblivion—before or after the final failure of the project. They leave the country only with losses and future corruption scandals.
Ukraine’s port industry demonstrates this with painful clarity.
Oleksandr Zakharov for “Argument”