Ukraine among top 15 global exporters of plums in 2018
Ukrainian Horticultural Association (UHA) reported that Ukraine exported record high volume of plums in 2017, which allowed it to become 14thlargest global exporter of this product. This came as a complete surprise to fruit traders and growers in the EU as Ukraine has never exported any significant volumes of plums in the past.
Most of the plums exported from Ukraine went to the EU countries as Ukrainian farmer were able to offer a very competitive price and good quality of fruits. Due to unique climatic conditions with significant variations between day and night temperatures but a lot of sunny hours during vegetation period, Ukrainian plums have excellent colouring and a very good taste. Moreover, Ukrainian plums were also offered at a very competitive price thanks to free trade agreement between Ukraine and the EU, which means that Ukrainian fruits enter the EU market without any duties.
This made Ukraine the fourth largest supplier of plums to the EU after South Africa, Chile and Moldova. Ukraine even managed to beat Turkey which was mostly focusing on the markets outside of the EU and Serbia, which continued to prefer supplying products to the Russian market, where quality requirements were lower and prices quite high due to so called anti-sanctions.
The EU imported more than 300,000 tons of fresh plums in 2017, which was a new record with largest importers being Germany, UK, Netherlands and Poland.