MINSK, 15 June (BelTA) – In January-May this year Belarus exported $1198 worth of foodstuffs, up 46.1% over the same period of last year. Import increased by 4.3% to $644.9 million, BelTA learned from the Belarus National Statistics Committee.
The increase in food export is attributed to the rising export value of white sugar (by $85.5 million), beef (by $37.2 billion), condensed milk and milk powder (by $77.9 million), butter (by $36.2 million), cheeses and cottage cheese (by $48.9 million), milk and cream (by $23.6 million).
In January-May 2010, the average export prices for milk and dairy products made up $2.4 thousand per tonne, up 36.3% over the same period of last year; for meat and meat products made up $3.1 thousand per tonne, up 5.7%.
In the period under review, food accounted for 13% of Belarus’ total export as against 11.3% in January-May 2009.
In January-May 2010, Belarus’ main exports were dairy and meat products. In January-May, export of milk and dairy products made up 242.9 thousand tonnes, up 10.65 over the same period of last year, export of meat and meat products made up 82 thousand tonnes (up 20.4%). Belarus exported 230.5 thousand tonnes of milk and dairy products (up 20%) and 81.7 thousand tonnes of meat and meat products (20.1%) to the Russian Federation.
In the period under review, the Belarusian food import saw a decline. In January-May 2010 a significant fall was registered in the import of cereals (by 64.1%), frozen fish (by 3.7%), animal feed (by 26.3%). At the same time, Belarus increased the import of vegetable oil by 0.5% to 43.4 thousand tonnes.
According to the Belarus National Statistics Committee, in January-May 2010, the food accounted for 5.4% of Belarus’ total import (in January - May 2009 – 5.9%).
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