Brazil is our main market in Latin America

So far the Americas haven’t been important markets for Hungarian produce. About 83-84 percent of our agri-food export goes to the European Union. However, it is our basic interest to find new export markets and thanks to a US decision made recently, Hungarian meat products now have the chance to enter the US market. We can be hopeful that being present in the USA will generate an interest in Hungarian produce in the countries of Latin America too. As a matter of fact, Hungarians living in the region can also contribute to raising the interest of locals in Hungarian groceries. Although Hungary’s agricultural export to the Americas expanded by 15.8 percent in 2013, we can’t be satisfied with the volume. Hungary’s agricultural export amounts to EUR 8.1 billion and only 0.7 percent of this ended up in the Americas.

At the same time it must also be noted that our agri-food import from South America is statistically often considered as EU-import, because in many cases produce from South America arrives at EU seaports and is later sold in the Hungarian market as EU products, without the country of origin being indicated. For instance in 2012 the majority of our raw coffee import came from the EU-15 countries, e.g. Germany exported 12,300 tons of raw coffee to Hungary, while from Brazil we only bought 34 tons. As for our roasted coffee import, in 2013 we bought 12,934 tons from abroad and 99.9 percent of this came from the European Union. Slovakia is our main roasted coffee supplier: we purchased 8,174 tons, 63 percent of our coffee import from there. In Latin America Brazil is our most important partner, in terms of both export and import. What is more, Hungary’s agri-food export grew by 16.3 percent in 2013, while our import from Brazil reduced by one third. Still, our trade balance in this relation was negative. Hungary’s other markets in the region include Mexico, Chile, Columbia, Uruguay and Venezuela – to the latter our export was ten times bigger in 2013 than in the previous year, due to the surge in our beverage and candy sales there. Our main sources of import in Latin America are Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Columbia