Facts and misbeliefs about our trade with Slovakia

Slovakia is the 5th biggest target market of our agricultural export, but it is also one of our top five import markets. Among the countries of the Visegrád Group, Slovakia is the only one with which we have had a positive agricultural trade balance since 2008. In 2008, our Slovakian export market expanded by 54 percent, due to a diversified product export expansion. In comparison with 2007, the following product groups were among those that managed to grow: meat and meat products (EUR 24.5 million) – by 172.5 percent, dairy products (EUR 15.7 million) – by 186.4 percent,
cereals (EUR 68.7 million) – by 224 percent, sugar and sugar products (EUR 45.3 million) – by 143.3 percent. In 2009, 56 percent of our annual agricultural export was realised by meat and meat products, livestock, oily seeds, fats of animal and vegetable origin, sugar and sugar products. The structure of our import is diversified too: while in the second half of the 1990s dairy products were the most important, by 2008 other product groups surpassed dairy products’ import value.
In 2008, beverages and spirits dominated our import from Slovakia; with a value of EUR 56 million they represented 22 percent of our import. In Slovakian-Hungarian bilateral agricultural and food trade there is seemingly pointless (the volume and value of export and import are very close to each other) product exchange too. Certain experts are of the opinion that this is the result of the procurement policy of certain multinational retail chains.