WARSAW: Poland and Moldova are currently far ahead of Ukraine when it comes to the export of fruits and vegetables. Polish shipments annually give the country $2.5 billion in revenue, while the value of Ukrainian exports of the same products is 10 times smaller, only $250 million.
This was reported by the economist of the investment department of FAO, Andrey Yarmak, noting also that Ukraine has almost three times more farmland than Poland.
“Even the smaller Moldova has also slightly surpassed Ukraine on this indicator, and the gap will only grow. After all, over the past 5 years, Moldova has increased its exports by 64%, while Ukraine’s have been reduced by 23%,” stated Andrey Yarmak.
According to him, the investments in marketing have become the main advantage of Moldova and Poland over Ukraine in the fruit and vegetable market.
“In any case, the situation there is also still far from ideal. In Poland, the situation is slightly better, but even there, according to local experts, less than half of the production meets the high-quality requirements of the very demanding EU markets.
Moldova is just at the beginning of this path, but even in the matters of handling and packing of products they are already ahead of Ukraine,” concluded Andrey Yarmak.