But the Ukrainian National Sugar Producers Association, Ukrtsukor, said that Ukraine would produce about 1.85 million tonnes of white sugar this year, compared to the previous estimate of 1.7 to 1.9 million tonnes.

Ukraine produced 2.1 million tonnes of white sugar in 1997.

Ukragroconsult estimates this year's sugar beet output down to 16 million tonnes from 17.7 million tonnes last year with around 5,000 hectares sown to sugar beet left unharvested and under snow.

Out of 192 sugar processing plants, only 144 plants have started sugar processing. Of this, 69 have finished the processing season due to shortages ofsugarbeets.

In 1998, corn production is estimated at about 1.4-1.5 million tonnes, as against 5.3 million last year. Due to delayed harvesting, a significant proportion of corn plantings have been lost, especially in regions with heavy snow cover.

Snowfalls since mid-November have stopped the winter sowing campaign. Total winter grain area sown for the 1999 harvest is estimated at 6.7 million hectares, as against 6.9 million hectares last year.

The poorest winter crop conditions are recorded in the south-eastern regions.

In Dnipropetrovsk region, about 100,000 hectares out of 127,000 hectares are rated as poor; there were no sprouts at all on 88,000 hectares.

In Kherson region, 154,000 hectares out of 429,000 hectares sown to winter plantings showed no sprouting.

In Zaporizhya region, the figures are 126,000 hectares with no sprouting out of 328,000 hectares sown.

All in all, about 1.5 to 2 million tonnes of winter plantings, or one-fourth of the total sown area, are expected to be resown in thespring.