Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
Apple import is ready to start: import tax decreases 20 times on December the 1st
Kyiv wholesale markets are glutted with apples. Apple prices remain relatively low comparing to the previous year; it stands out vividly on the background of the price increasing trend on produce, observed this year. Most probably, this situation is caused by Ukrainian producers and wholesale companies which fear for the considerable import supplies starting from December, and the following price decrease. According to the Changes to Custom Tariff of Ukraine effective since August 2005, the apple import tax is decreased down to 5% instead of the earlier EUR 0.5/kg for the period of December the 1st- March the 31st. 5% tax is worth only EUR 0.02-0.025/kg for the main apple varieties which cost up to EUR 0.4-0.5/kg.
The majority of experts are united to think that considerable decrease of apple import tax will affect apple production in Ukraine much. Most advanced apple orchards will suffer the most, as their high quality products will meet a severe competition with the imported commodities. To this moment, according to the specialists' evaluations, such orchards bring high profits, they are cost-effective, let the producers increase the production volumes rapidly. Lower profitability is likely to be followed by the acreage decrease of apple orchards.
Nowadays the majority of apples on city markets are of Ukrainian origin, there are some apples supplied from Moldova. Market players from western regions of Ukraine inform about Hungarian and Polish apple supplies to the country market, but imported volumes are still insufficient.
Today the market players observe the increased interest of foreign companies to Ukrainian apple market. In the previous years apples were mainly imported from Moldova; Holland, France, Poland, China and other countries imported apples to Ukraine too. To our regret, the experts say that the official data of apple import differs much from the reality. According to the official statistics, past year 612 tons of apples were imported to our country.