In terms of frozen fruit production, Serbia ranks second in Europe, just behind Poland, and we have good positions in the sector of cigarette and sunflower oil production.
As the site “Macroeconomy” announced, by joining the European Union, Serbia would bring in more than two percent of the agricultural and food economy, and this is the only sector where we are above average developed in relation to the EU. European Statistics Eurostat has a database on production, trade, quantities and values of industrial production by country.
The “Macroeconomy” analysis includes 428 products of the food industry out of a total of 4,476, and it also specifies how much some of the most successful sectors would increase the total production of the EU if Serbia were a member.
We are a little worse off with cigarettes because production is higher in Poland, Germany and Romania. True, the analysis points out, data are missing for France (which has not reported any production since 2009) and for several other potentially larger producers. In the production of sunflower oil, we are the fourth largest producer, after Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania.
According to Aleksandar Leposavic, one of the leading experts in fruit growing, Poland has been number one in this sector for many years.
The dominant share in that production has berries and a part of cherries. By the way, Poland, Serbia, Spain, Morocco, Egypt and Ukraine are the leading suppliers of frozen berries in Europe. In that sector, he says, we are in the rank of leaders with production standards that are at an extremely high level.
Poland set a record in 2018, when it exported about 230,000 tons of frozen berries to the European market, with the share of strawberries being 41 percent, raspberries 23 percent and 21 percent black currants, which (in a five-year period) had the largest jump in production since as many as 12 percent.
They export a third of these products to Germany, and until recently, Belarus was their fastest growing export destination.
– However, due to the decline in production in recent years, Poles also import significant quantities of frozen fruit from other countries, primarily strawberries and raspberries. Their imports have tripled in the last ten years, with raspberries from Serbia and Republika Srpska having a fairly large share lately – Leposavic points out.
Our range of frozen fruits is narrower compared to Poles. Mostly, most of it comes down to frozen raspberries, then blackberries and a little less blueberries. There is also a share of cherries that oscillates quite a bit. About 60 percent of our exports go to Germany.
The interlocutor estimates that when it comes to primary production, Serbia is quite stagnant. According to official data, in 2018, we had 22,654 hectares under raspberries, which in his opinion is questionable.
– If so, then we have extremely low yields per unit area. And that is what we have to improve, to avoid mistakes in primary production. For now, our quality is not in question, but if the trend of a solid whole raspberry continues, there is a fear that we will repeat the same mistakes from the past – warned Aleksandar Leposavic, Kurir reports.
