The data of “Moldova-Fruct” Association show that the Moldovan apples in the 2021-2022 agricultural season were exported to nearly 30 countries, up from 18 countries earlier. Moldova’s apples now reach countries in the European Union, Central Asia, Persian Gulf and Northern Africa. But the change would have been impossible if the Moldovan producers hadn’t made effort to embrace the Western technologies and standards the last few years, IPN reports, quoting RFE/RL’s Moldovan Service.
March is the period when tens of thousands of Moldovan apples were traditionally exported to Russia after being kept in cold storage facilities for months. But the war, alongside a series older Russian bans, made this direction almost impracticable.
In solidarity with Moldovan producers that lost the Russian market in 2022, the EU extended the duty-free export quotas for Moldovan agricultural products, including apples, grapes, plums, cherries, tomatoes, garlic and grape juice. But the European market, primarily the apple market, is yet oversaturated. The Moldovan producers oriented their operations to the EU rather for standards and exchanges of experience and technologies, for examples to follow.
RFE/RL’s Moldovan Service visited an apple producer from Olănești village of Ștefan Vodă district at the beginning of December, when preparations were underway for exporting by sea a batch of apples to Dubai, via Constanta. Ion Tulei, technical director of the enterprise from Olănești, said the investments made by them and the technologies they implemented were mostly brought from the EU.
Viaceslav Grigoriță, head of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Vegetal Sector Policies Division, told the Service that the Republic of Moldova as an EU candidate country launched a preparatory effort to make sure that the Moldovan producers benefit from European subsidies in agriculture when these become available to them.
Vasile Plămădeală, trade officer at the Delegation of the European Union in Chisinau, said the European standards mean something more. “Here is no place for payments in cash, for the delivery and declaring of goods at a particular value and the receipt of goods at another value. Trade with the European Union brings transparency into the economy,” stated the trade officer.
