KIEV, July 22 – Ukraine, which is increasingly facing isolation from the Western democracies due to alleged persecution of opposition and slow reforms, has been seeking political and financial support from China.

President Viktor Yanukovych’s administration has recently made serious efforts to secure multi-billion-dollar deals with the Chinese in what they see an emerging new strategic partnership.

Konstantin Hryshchenko, the foreign minister, just wrapped up his visit to Beijing, and Ukrainian officials say Yanukovych himself will soon be heading to China for an official state visit, a sign that new deals are in the pipeline.

Ukraine’s Energy Ministry recently revealed that it was holding negotiations on landing a $3.7 billion loan with the State Development Bank of China to finance two coal gasification plants. If the deal goes through, Chinese technology could soon help Ukraine wean its energy-intensive national economy off increasingly costly Russian fuel imports.

Earlier this month, Kiev’s agriculture minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk was quoted on news agency Interfax-Ukraine talking of a pledge to ship up to 2.5 million metric tons of corn to China annually as part of a $3 billion loan from the Export-Import Bank of China.

In late June, the central bank of China revealed that it had signed a currency swap deal valued at $2.36 billion with its Ukrainian counterpart, according to the Financial Times. Aimed at boosting bilateral trade, the deal will enable companies from both nations to use Ukrainian hryvnia and Chinese yuan to settle transactions. That’s good news for Ukraine, whose domestic currency is under pressure with large amounts of dollar-denominated debts maturing this year and next.

Other inter-governmental deals are also being discussed.

Referring to China as a “strategic” partner, Yanukovych said this month: “We need new Chinese technologies and high-quality products. In return, we can offer Chinese entrepreneurs interesting possibilities in exploring for natural resources, metallurgy, chemicals and agriculture.”

The hope, according to Yanukovych, is to increase annual bilateral trade from currently low levels to some $10 billion in coming years.

Ukrainian businessmen are also getting in on the Chinese action. Oleg Bakhmatyuk, an up-and-coming billionaire agribusiness tycoon, on July 19 talked of a corn export agreement with China, which currently gets a reported 97% of its corn from the US.

“Ukraine is expecting the agreement to be signed by the end of the year and soon after that, we can start to load corn to China,” Reuters quoted Bakhmatyuk, chairman of Ukrlandfarming, during a visit to Beijing. (ft/ez)