The current pandemic has inflicted a lot of damage to Moldovan apple exports, cutting the volume of apples sold abroad by about 50 per cent. According to Moldova’s Custom Services, the volume of apple exports in March 2021 dropped by almost half YoY; from 30,000 to just 17,000 tons.
Moldova exported 39,000 tons of apples in April 2020 and 35,000 tons in May, but the exports dropped sharply in June 2020 to only 3,000 tons. By mid-April this year, 50-70,000 tons of last year’s harvest remained in the storage of producers and traders.
In recent years, Moldovan apple exporters invested in big refrigerators to store their crops and sell the merchandise depending on the best global price. Prices are higher now for Moldovan producers, with an average of $ 0.03-0.05 per kilogram, due to the exchange rate between the Moldovan leu and the US dollar.
Source: balkaninsight.com
