In the past year, exports from B&H to Russia have considerably increased, especially when it comes to fruits and vegetables. ‘Al Jazeera visited one of the many fruit plantations in the vicinity of Gradiška, where the producers have joined, as they say, to set out to win the Russian market together.
Dragoja Dojčinović from Jablanica near Gradiška is engaged in fruit production for 40 years. He owns 17 hectares of fruit plantations, mostly apples and pears. The market has always been a problem due to imports and the low purchase prices, he said. Some of the fruit always remained unsold. Until the last year when the European Union introduced sanctions for Russia.
“These sanctions were welcomed very much. Thanks to some other problems in Europe, we have been fortunate enough and able to use the opportunity and rapidly orient ourselves towards this market and win it,” said Dojčinović.
Fruit producers from this region formed a cooperative. Data of the Agency for Statistics of B&H speaks enough about the success of the export strategy: In the first 6 months of last year, 27,000 EUR worth fruits and vegetables were exported from B&H to Russia. In the same period this year, only apples and pears worth more than 5 million EUR were exported.
B&H and Russia have Trade Agreement for 10 years. There was export before as well, but the Chamber of Commerce of the Republic of Srpska (RS) believes that there is room for expansion. They say that Russia is interested in other products as well. Therefore, they believe that the Free Trade Agreement would represent a certain relief.
“It is an international agreement that would allow us not to pay export duties from the RS or B&H on the territory of the Russian Federation. Let’s say we take one product, if we’re talking about fruits and vegetables, somewhere between 10 and 15 % is currently paid for the export duty,” said Vladimir Blagojević from the Chamber of Commerce of RS.
(Source: akta.ba)
