Romania is a big importer of agri-food products from three important countries, namely Germany, Hungary and Poland, but together with these products we also import inflation, said the president of the National Institute of Statistics (INS) Tudorel Andrej. on Tuesday

“I would like to discuss – and perhaps there is room for a very wide debate – how much inflation Romania imports, at least in terms of agricultural products, in the context we are in. We may be able to find a solution to stop such a problem in the next period, especially since it is not a problem that we can solve overnight. And I’d like to give you just a few numbers from two different plans. On the one hand, the inflation that we have in developed countries, on agro-food In October, compared to October last year, Germany had inflation of more than 20%, Poland – 22%, the Netherlands – 14%, Hungary – 40%. Romania had high inflation for agri-food products, over 20% Why did I give these numbers? I will also provide the following. Romania is a major importer of agri-food products from at least 3 important countries: Germany, Hungary, Poland. And let me read you some figures that relate to this sense, and you will see how much the market of the agri-food sector in Romania depends on what is produced in these countries, and we import these products equally, but we import, we want, we do not we want, and this inflation,” Andrii Tudorel said at the conference dedicated to the banking and financial industry as part of the “Bucharest Summit of Leaders: New Challenges of the Future.”

He gave several examples of products, calling them relevant. So, for sweets, the ratio of imports and production is more than 6 to 1, for apple juice – more than 2 to 1, for fish – 30 to 1, for cream – 3.6 to 1.

“As for the tomato broth, which is incredible, that’s why the tomato is a national product, it’s a brand, if you can say so, the ratio is almost 14 to 1. Basically, the share of imports in domestic consumption. almost 95%. What does all this show us? The fact that we depend on the European market for these products, for those products, where we should have a large contribution to what the European market means for these products. Unfortunately, there are imbalances that have been created for 30 years, there are imbalances that are very difficult to mitigate in a short period of time,” Andrii asserted.

The President of the INS added that he had recently published an article in the publishing house of the Romanian Academy on Romania’s foreign trade in agri-food products.

“Thanks to an analysis based on statistics, statistics that shape Romania’s economy and foreign trade over a long period of time show us this great imbalance between what we produce, what we process, what we export, what we import. Unfortunately, the message is not positive in terms of numbers, and these imbalances cannot be eliminated in a short time, I hope that there will be a discussion at the level of the public space, at the level of civil society on this issue, since the efficiency of the Romanian agriculture is measured by the indicators of the foreign trade of agricultural food products. If we continue to balance the trade balance or mitigate the imbalance by exporting grain, seeds, live animals and, starting well in 2007, tobacco and tobacco products, it will be very difficult to have a positive trade balance in the next period,” said Andriy Tudorel

Source: Agerpres