LENDING TO THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR OF UKRAINE DURING WAR

Abstract

The article examines the problems of providing agricultural enterprises of Ukraine with credit resources for effective economic activity in the conditions of martial law. The general principles of the specifics of credit support for enterprises in the agricultural sector are considered, based on the seasonality of their production activity and the corresponding disproportions in their need for working capital. The main sources of financial resources of agricultural enterprises and the role of credit support to ensure their effective activity are considered. Obstacles to the formation of a transparent credit policy regarding agricultural sector enterprises that exist in the banking sector have been identified. The dynamics of bank lending processes after the start of the war were studied and prospects for its expansion in the future were outlined. The influence of the regulatory policy of the National Bank of Ukraine on the credit activity of commercial banks in modern conditions is considered. Ensuring the efficiency of the functioning of agricultural enterprises largely depends on the regularity of replenishment of their working capital to finance operational activities, as well as on the availability of investment resources to ensure the proper level of reproduction of fixed assets. At the same time, lending to agricultural enterprises is one of the most problematic sectors in the banking sector, since determining the level of solvency of agricultural producers requires the use of long-term forecasting and analysis of the dynamics of the markets where their products will be sold. This significantly complicates the reliability of determining the borrower's solvency level, which generally complicates the process of obtaining loans by agricultural sector enterprises. In Ukraine, the problem of farmers' access to credit resources is also complicated by the long-term crisis in the industry, which has led to a general reduction in agricultural lending by commercial banks. Currently, when as a result of military operations, the uncertainty in the field of long-term forecasting has significantly increased, commercial banks have reduced lending to the national economy to almost zero, which painfully hit the agrarian sector, which was left practically without external sources of replenishment of its financial resources, since the state also practically stopped financing agricultural support programs, directing funds to finance the country's defense.