June 29 2006, 11:53

Onion importers have again overestimated Ukrainian market

The analysts of "Agrooglyad: Vegetables and Fruits" journal are constantly monitoring the situation of Ukrainian produce market; they have again observed excessive import of bulb onion to our country in the period when local early onion enters markets. Today even unprofessional visitors of Kyiv wholesale market can notice that there is much more imported onion on market than the buyers of this commodity.

Sellers are trying to sell wholesale shipments of imported onion of Polish or Egyptian origin for not less than $0.74-0.78/kg. However, they have reduced prices on $0.03-0.05/kg in average during several recent days. At the same time, today early bulb onion costs $0.39/kg in the southern regions of Ukraine; it makes imported onion practically non-competitive. Andrey Yarmak, the Deputy Director of the Agricultural Marketing Project thinks the further price reduction for past year onion is inevitable. Those wholesalers may lose money who imported this commodity to Ukraine.

The same situation was observed on Ukrainian market approximately two years ago, when large shipment of Egyptian onion was brought to the country just before the season of early onion. Some supermarket chains tried to sell Egyptian onion the whole summer long for 3-4 times higher than market price. According to evaluations of the experts of the Agricultural Marketing Project, onion production can grow till new top record. So, onion prices will soon be pressed by the seriously increased supply.