BH export of food and live animals in 2017 recorded a modest growth of 4.3 percent, driven by higher exports of fruits and vegetables, dairy products and fish, while imports had a higher growth rate of 4.7 percent driven by increased imports of live animals, meat and meat products, and fruits and vegetables.
BH export of food and live animals, according to the Agency for Statistics of B&H, amounted to 730.8 million BAM in 2017 and was higher by 30 million BAM than in 2016, while imports exceeded 2.24 billion BAM, which is a record amount up to now.
If we omit from the total amount the export of food and live animals from the export of fodder and live animals, the export of food products in 2017 amounted to about 700 million BAM, and imports slightly more than 2 billion BAM, writes indikator.ba.
Export of meat and meat products in the past year experienced a decrease of 16.5 percent to a total of 111.7 million BAM. The value of exports of meat and meat products is closely linked to the export of meat to Turkey. In the last two years, exports of meat and meat products have been declining, which caused problems with exports to Turkey in the second half of 2016 and the first half of 2017 when there was no redemption.
BH export of milk and dairy products and eggs amounted to 78.9 million BAM in 2017 and was higher by 10.9 percent on the wings of the recovered export of dairy products to the EU, primarily to Croatia, after the abolition of the Brussels blockade. The export of fish and fish products reached the amount of 30.3 million BAM, which is twice the value compared to 2016.
The first export destination for BH food is Turkey in which exports amounted to 130.3 million BAM in 2017, outperforming Serbia, which is second with 124 million BAM. Main BH products exported to Turkey are oil, flour and meat.
