Exports of Greek agriculture up 30 pct since 2012

Commenting on the monthly export report of the Federation, Loufakis said that despite this increase, the trade balance of the sector remained negative.
The EU market accounted for around 70 pct of Greek exports of agro-food products, mostly in Italy (22 pct market share), Germany (11.0 pct), Bulgaria (5.0 pct), UK (5.0 pct), Cyprus (4.0 pct) and Holland (4.0 pct), while the US accounted for another 5.0 pct.
“It is a fact that due to a prolonged crisis in recent years, consumption of fresh agricultural produce has been drastically reduced in central and eastern Europe, once important markets. For this reason, SEVE has repeatedly noted the need for a focused promotion of Greek farm products to countries with rising growth rates and large populations, such as China and India, which must become alternative markets for our products,” Loufakis said. He added that Asian markets could become export targets for grapes and kiwi, following the examples of other community Mediterranean markets such as Italy, Spain and France.
Dr. Loufakis noted that the agricultural sector in Greece faced serious structural problems, such as small farm sizes, ageing agricultural population, high production costs, low productivity and competitiveness. At the same time, he added, there were some remarkable and unique positive elements which, if supported by the necessary action, could contribute to resolving these domestic problems and help kickstart the Greek economy.
“According to researchers from the universities of Harvard and MIT, the wealth of nations is created by knowledge and skills. This means that a comparative advantage of a country is built on raising skills in its economy”, Loufakis said, adding that this could be done by attracting foreign investments. Mediterranean food is a comparative advantage, whose reputation we must exploit, he said.