Foreign trade turnover of agricultural commodities

Rumen Popov

Abstract: The article reveals the main development trends of agricultural foreign trade strategy of Bulgaria at the beginning of 21st century. For fifteen years, even taking consideration of the inflation, the trade increase is considerable. This development is indicative for the integration of Bulgarian agriculture in the world one and primary, in the European economy. The foreign trade regime stabilization through the abolition of the frequent changes of activity conditions, the WTO membership of the country from 1996 and particularly the agreement for accession to the European Community and the full EU membership from 2007 are political events created the development framework for agricultural export and import. The balance from the trade with agricultural commodities in all years of the period is positive, excluding 2007, when the harvest is extremely low. The excess of the export over the import of agricultural commodities in the penultimate year of the period – 2013 is a record – 1635.6 millions of EUR. The trade with agricultural commodities has big importance for the country economy, due to its high share in the foreign trade turnover and for the trade balance formation. The share of agricultural import and export until 2007 is relatively constant, but it increases in the period of EU membership and in 2014 it reaches 16.8% for the exportation and 9,4% for the importation. In 2014 three products groups realize 50% of agricultural export – cereals, oilseeds and tobacco. The share of alcoholic and soft drinks decreases sharply. In comparison to the beginning of the period, the non-processed products occupy increasingly big share of the agricultural exportation. The analysis of structural changes of agricultural commodities import shows that the share of main products as meat and milk has increased, for processing predominantly, as opposed to their production in the country. The share of processed products in the imports is higher than in the exports, but the importation of agricultural raw products for processing also has increased. At the end of first 15 years of 21-st century more than ¾ of the foreign trade turnover of Bulgaria with agricultural goods was realized with the EU countries.

Keywords: balance; export; foreign trade turnover; import

Date published: 2017-10-09