Stronger Hungarian presence in the Balkans

From the Balkan states Slovenia, Bulgaria and Croatia are already members of the European Union and Serbia has started accession talks. In 2012 Hungary’s agricultural export to the Balkan countries represented a value of EUR 636 million, 7.9 percent of our total agri-food export. By 2013 this expanded by EUR 100 million to represent 9 percent. The Balkans is a diverse region from an agricultural perspective: in Albania more than half of the active population works in agriculture and this ratio is also high in Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, while in Slovenia and Croatia almost 70 percent of the GDP comes from services. Last year 82 percent of Hungary’s agri-food export to the Balkans ended up in Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the first four months of 2014 our agricultural export to the Balkans expanded by 2.5 percent. As for the EUR 100 million export growth in 2013, it was mainly driven by the markets in Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia. We doubled our livestock and dairy product export to Serbia and exported seven times more vegetable oil and animal fat, while our drink export was up 40 percent. Croatia: we doubled our meat, meat product, animal fat and oil export, and tripled our dairy product export. In Slovenia we sold more meat and meat products, milling industry products, animal fat and oil, ready-made food and drinks. It is a good trend that our export growth in the region is the result of more processed products sold. Hungary’s economic relations with Serbia are more and more intensive. In order to create a favourable economic environment in the Balkans, in 2013 the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry organised forums in Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. The energy industry, tourism, building and construction, agriculture and the food industry are all key investment areas these days. Now that our agri-food export is growing dynamically in the region, we may grab the opportunity to improve our positions in other fields as well. Upon the OECD’s initiative Hungary granted several tied aid loans in the form of technical assistance to countries in the region, for instance in the value of EUR 11.5 million to Albania, EUR 15 million to Montenegro and EUR 15.8 million to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Steps like these contribute to strengthening not only political but also bilateral economic relations in the Balkans.