Greek peach exports increase despite Russian ban

According to the information discussed during the meeting of the Extraversion Steering Committee chaired by the Deputy Minister of Development Notis Mitarakis, exports of peaches this year, amounted to 141,000 tons compared to 112,000 tons last year, while only 1,000 tons were relegated brought to the program for internal consumption. Nevertheless, revenue of peach producers seems to be reduced, as the Russian-Ukrainian crisis adds pressure on prices, recorded since the beginning of 2014.

The Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Development will pursue the signing in 2014, mutually validated contracts with countries like India, China and Korea to open markets for Greek agricultural products.

Besides the peach crisis and the general situation in the Russian market, the big drop in the valueof the ruble against the euro, have had a significant impact on exports of Greek fur, and dropped the turnout of Russian tourists in Greece to 1.2 million, from last year's 1.3 million.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Development begins today a public consultation of the draft bill to further reduce bureaucracy for exports. As reported in today's meeting of the Extraversion Steering Committee, the operation of the electronic certificate for exports starts next month while it was also announced that in connection with the government's aim to reduce the time of exports by 50% and cost by 20%, in 2013 they achieved a reduction of 17% of the time for exports and 7.8% in respect to costs.

Overall size of exports is expected to remain stable this year compared to 27 billion euros in 2013.