Apples from storage are still being sold and Pawel Jendrzejczak from Agroserw said that they still have 3,000 tonnes available for sale from last season. He said that they are happy to report the quality of these apples is still good, despite the fact that 10-15% of the Polish production last year was of bad quality and only able to be used for juice.
The company keeps around 80% of its apples for the domestic market, with the remaining 20% allocated for export to Europe.
"We don't have any problems in the Polish apple market. We sold 20,000 tonnes to the domestic market last year and 5,000 tonnes was sold for export. We expect pricing to be good this year, as long as the quality stays at a good level, so there are a lot of export possibilities open to us."
Poland has been actively working on contracts with countries such as Vietnam, Northern Africa (especially Egypt) and the UAE, however, no deal has been made yet.
The Polish and Chinese government have also been hard at work in recent times to make a deal for apples, and many growers had hoped that the upcoming visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping, would mean the announcement of an allowance of Polish apples to China. However, Pawel said that he expects that it is still too soon for this type of announcement.
A 3 day conference held in St. Petersburg this week, hosted by Vladimir Putin and visited by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, has renewed hopes that an agreement could be made in easing Russian sanctions.
However, in a recent report by the French Press Agency, it was reported that Juncker said the EU must talk with Russia but that doesn't mean that the EU's support for Ukraine's territorial integrity is wavering. He said that the full implementation of the Ukraine peace deal "no more, no less, is the only way to lift the economic sanctions."
"The most important thing for Polish growers still remains the lifting of the Russian embargo. We will know more after the European talks, but we are hopeful that they are close to a decision, but we will know more in a month." said Pawel.
For
more information:Pawel Jendrzejczak
Agroserw
Tel: +48 664 60 06
Fax: +48 664 44 67
Email: kozietuly@agroserw.com.pl
www.agroserw.com.pl