Prospects of Ukrainian agricultural market development in the context of European integration

Abstract

Ukraine’s European integration is a multilevel, dynamic, and long process that has a complex, sometimes dramatic evolution and depends on many internal and external factors. Ukraine has favorable geographical, climatic, resource and other prerequisites for rural development, so it is potentially able to become a country with priority agricultural development and one of the main suppliers to world markets of environmentally friendly food products. However, today the problem of inconsistency between the level of development of the Ukrainian agricultural sector and rural areas in general at the world level and the standards of the EU countries remains unresolved. The prerequisites for Ukraine’s integration into the EU are analyzed, considering the advantages and disadvantages of this process for the country’s agricultural market. The necessity of transition to the investment and innovation model of development of this market was proved. Optimization of the development of all sectors of the agricultural market should become a significant direction for improving the management of innovative financing. The article considers the current state of development of the agri-food market in the foreign economic activity of Ukraine. The assessment of the level of competitiveness of agricultural products is summarized. Factors influencing the improvement of competitive positions of agricultural products in the domestic and foreign markets are proposed. Global trends indicate that Ukraine can gain a lasting push for development and even become a world leader, becoming a breadwinner for almost the whole world. The adoption of EU norms and standards in Ukraine, together with duty-free trade, should attract investors who want to introduce the latest technologies into the country’s economy. This will help turn Ukraine’s economy into an exporter of value-added products, and exports of raw materials will be a thing of the past. These global changes would have to be accompanied by a qualitatively new steps to create conditions for the liberalization of markets. This should also apply to markets for agricultural products and food products. In this way, we can expect success only if we increase the competitiveness of agricultural products. And this, in turn, can only be realized in conditions of innovative development.