Chinese and Ukrainian flags sit side-by-side on a conference room table in downtown Kiev – the sign of a flourishing new alliance between the world’s most populous nation and some of the richest farmland on earth.
“Everyone in China has probably heard of me by now,” says Oleg Bakhmatyuk, a Ukrainian billionaire.
Mr Bakhmatyuk, founder of both UkrLandFarming, the world’s eighth-largest land cultivator, and Avangardco, world number two in egg production, says he has spent about half of the past 18 months in Asia. He has negotiated exports and investment with agricultural giants such as Cofco, the Chinese state grains trader, New Hope, the private feed and meat conglomerate, and Temasek, the Singapore government investment company.