In cooperation with the Foreign Trade Chamber of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), within the Market Agriculture Development Project, analyzes of foreign trade in the sector of dairy, poultry, fruits and vegetables, medicinal plants, forest fruits and honey in BiH for the period 2015-2019 were made, eKapija business portal reports.
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.
