The agricultural market has all the prerequisites to repeat the success of timber trading on the exchange, according to Oleksii Semeniuk

During a working meeting, Oleksii Semeniuk, Chairman of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission, together with Commissioner Arsen Ilin, discussed the development of the commodity exchange market with Serhii Hladkyi, Director of the Ukrainian Universal Exchange.

The Ukrainian Universal Exchange is a licensed exchange founded in 1997, which organized and conducted 7,700 exchange trades last year alone. Over the years, the UUE has worked in various segments, including property sales, natural gas trading, and raw timber trading.

Currently, the main focus of the exchange’s activity is the market for raw timber and sawn timber. This segment demonstrates a high level of organization: over 6,000 active customers, 16 partner companies in the regions of Ukraine, and approximately 90% of contracts fulfilled thanks to a well-designed system for monitoring the fulfillment of concluded agreements using powerful IT systems with elements of artificial intelligence.

During the meeting, Serhii Hladkyi presented the key areas of the exchange’s work, in particular the development of the agricultural market. The exchange works with grain crops — wheat, corn, sunflower, barley — and is planning to expand into animal products. To this end, the exchange’s electronic trading system has been adapted to the needs of the agricultural market. There is ongoing work with participants in the agricultural market, representatives of relevant professional associations, and government officials to explain the advantages of an organized commodity market. In order to increase the potential customer base, a free agricultural bot has been launched on Telegram, which is used by about 40,000 participants.

The Chairman of the NSSMC emphasized that the experience of timber trading on the exchange can also be applied to the agricultural market. Exchange mechanisms allow volumes to be brought out of the shadows, ensure transparency of transactions, and track the entire chain of goods movement—from production to export or processing—which creates conditions for legal operation of producers and increases revenues to the state budget.

“Exactly this approach can and should be applied to the agricultural market. Clear rules of exchange allow us to see the entire product movement chain and motivate market participants to operate legally and pay taxes. The NSSMC is ready to contribute to the creation of transparent and effective rules for the agricultural sector,” said Oleksii Semeniuk.

Summarizing the results of the meeting, the Chairman of the Commission noted that work in this direction continues, and the agricultural market has all the prerequisites to repeat the success of the timber market. Clear rules, systematic control, and consistency in their implementation remain key factors in this development.