Hungary’s improving balance in agri-food trading with Serbia

Serbia has a population of 7.2 million and the proportion of land used for agricultural production is 57.9 percent. Basically Serbia is offering the same produce in the international market as Hungary. The country is well ahead of us in terms of irrigation, as they water 919,000 hectares of land, while Hungary only does this on 170,000 hectares. Agriculture’s share in the GDP is relatively high at 8.2 percent – industry is at 36.9 percent and services are at 54.9 percent. In addition to this, 21.9 percent of the active population work in agriculture. Serbia’s main agri-food export markets are Italy, Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia and Romania. In 2014 the country’s GDP fell 1.8 percent and state debt was 71 percent of the GDP. Serbia’s per capita GDP is about half of Hungary’s at USD 13,300. In March 2012 Serbia opened accession negotiations with the European Union and is currently in talks to become a WTO member. As for Hungary’s trading with Serbia, in the last eight years both export and import doubled. The 7-percent growth in 2015 is also noteworthy as it is much higher than Hungary’s average agri-food export growth. Our export structure is rather diverse, with processed products outweighing unprocessed agri-food products. Live pig and poultry are important in our export to Serbia, together with pork and poultry meat, sausage, salami and canned meat. We also export fruits, vegetables, flowers, mineral water, beer and wine to Serbia. Hungary’s day-old chick export soared 38 percent, plant cutting and propagation material export rose 36 percent and corn export grew by 69 percent in 2015. Our ground cereal crop and mineral water export doubled, and Hungary’s sunflower seed export tripled.