Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
Ukrainian apple market in 2012/13: higher imports and bad conditions for exports
Ukraine stands a good chance to have record-breaking apple production in 2012. According to Fruit-Inform's estimates, total apple production in the country will grow to 1.1 mln tonnes, while imports will increase by 5-7%. Experts think that those factors will lead to lower prices of Ukrainian apples that nevertheless will not result in their higher competitive power in the external market.
“In the new season, apple prices will most probably be 15-20% lower year-on-year with higher internal production being one of the reasons for that”, Mrs. Tetiana Getman, Head of Fruit-Inform, said at the 2nd International Conference “Apple Business of Ukraine & Russia – 2012”.
The expert noted that an increase in Ukrainian apple production will concur with higher imports from Poland, the country that will harvest 20% more apples this year. In addition, conditions for exports will significantly worsen, as Russia will sharply decrease its import duty on apples already in August. It means that Ukrainian producers will have to stand competition with relatively inexpensive and high-quality apples from the EU.
At the same time, despite negative forecasts of apple production in the EU countries, Poland will nevertheless prefer exporting to Russia, as trading conditions will be significantly improved in this country already this year. “In the previous season, the CIS countries accounted for no less than 80% of all Polish apple exports with about 60% of all apple exports from Poland bounding for Russia”, Mrs. Getman added.
We would remind you that the fundamental study “Apples of Ukraine & Russia – 2012: Present Situation and Prospects in Growing, Storage, Handling, Processing and Marketing” will be available since September this year.
To know more about the study, please contact International Relations Department of Fruit-Inform:
Ievgen Kuzin
phone: +380 (562) 321595, ext. - 341
cell: +380 96 5836323
email: [email protected]