At the session of the Board of the Group of Processors of Milk and Dairy Products, which consists of leading companies from this sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it was discussed about the current topics and current issues of the dairy sector of BiH, as well as proposals and further steps to continue activities and improve the business climate.
Also, an analysis of the situation in the dairy industry with indicators of exports and imports in the period of the first six months of this year was presented, eKapija business portal reports.
”According to the data of foreign trade of milk and dairy products for the mentioned period in 2020, the volume of exchange in the value of 127,466,662 BAM was recorded. Out of the total volume, the export of milk and dairy products amounted to 48,209,642 BAM, while the total import was 79,257,020 BAM. Comparing the data with the same period in 2019, there is a decline in exports of 10.8%, but also imports of 9.4%,” it is added.
The first of the analyzes, the one on the dairy sector, shows that in 2019 there was an increase in exports of milk and dairy products of 20% (17.9 million BAM) compared to 2018, while imports grew by 25.6 million BAM (17%). The coverage of imports by exports increased to 59%.
We import more expensive, and export cheaper
Quantitatively, exports exceeded imports by 6,855 tons! In relation to the financial result, it can be concluded that we import more expensive and export cheaper products, the analysis shows. Markets covered by the CEFTA agreement (Serbia, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia and Albania) account for 86% of exports, while EU markets (primarily Croatia) account for 13% of total exports.
The key export markets are Serbia (36%) and Montenegro (33% of total exports). Although exports to the Croatian market increased by 33% (3.3 million BAM), an incomparably better result was recorded in Serbia, where exports more than doubled (118%, ie KM 20.6 million).
In 2019, no exports were recorded to the Kosovo market, where we are 2017-2018 annually exported more than 10 million BAM of milk and dairy products. Milk dominates exports The structure of exports is dominated by milk and sour cream with 59%, whose exports are growing (8%, 4.6 million BAM).
Exports of fermented products continue to record the highest growth in the dairy sector (12 million BAM)!
Namely, in the last 5 years, the import of yogurt fell by 5 million BAM, while the export increased by 23 million BAM!
We import 11 times more cheese than we export, while imports continue to grow (7%, 5.2 million BAM), in quantity, as much as 12,379 tons! It turns out that we eat 34 tons a day, 223,673 BAM of imported cheese.
