Ukraine in January-August 2022 imported fruits and nuts for a total of $398 million, which is 16% less than in the same period in 2021, according to the website of the National Research Center “Institute of Agrarian Economics” (IAE) on Friday.
At the same time, deliveries to Ukraine of products of the “fruits and nuts” commodity group accounted for the largest share among other types of agricultural products imported into Ukraine – 10%, mainly citrus fruits, bananas and exotic fruits were imported.
According to the IAE, Turkey has been the main supplier of fruits and nuts to Ukraine for more than 10 years, from which over 126 thousand tons of these products were imported during the eight months of this year. Its share in the cost of domestic fruit imports amounted to 27.1%.
Ukrainian companies also made significant purchases of fruits and nuts in Ecuador (15.3%), Egypt (6.8%), Greece (6.0%), Colombia (5.5%), Spain (4.9%) and Costa Rica (4.1%). Together, these seven countries formed almost 70% of the value of imports of this group of products to Ukraine.
“The greatest demand among fruit and berry products in our country is traditionally enjoyed by citrus fruits and bananas, which formed almost 3/5 of the value of imports in January-August 2022. If more than half of the volumes of citrus imports consistently belong to Turkey, then Ukraine purchases bananas mainly in countries Latin America, in particular in Ecuador, Colombia and Costa Rica, which this year provided 95% of the value of supplies,” said Bohdan Dukhnitsky, senior researcher at the Department of Economics, whose words are quoted in the message.
