Slovenia in talks to increase wheat imports from Serbia

Slovenia is holding talks to increase imports of wheat from Serbia to cope with the disruption of supply chains caused by the war in Ukraine, Slovenian agriculture minister Joze Podgorsek said.

“We know that Serbia will be exporting wheat to a list of countries and we expect that we will be among them,” Podgorsek said in a video file posted on the website of public broadcaster RTV on Tuesday.

Slovenia satisfies about 70% of its wheat demand through own production but growers need a guarantee that their wheat will be purchased at market prices, the president of the Slovenian Chamber of Agriculture and Forestry, Roman Zveglic, said in the video file.

“Serbia can export 750,000 tonnes of wheat. The state can control exports by issuing special permits,” the director of Serbia’s grain producers association, Suncica Savovic, said.

More than half of Slovenia wheat imports originate in Hungary, a country that banned grain exports in March in the context of the war in Ukraine, according to data from the Slovenian statistical office, SURS.

In 2021, Slovenia imported 60,135 tonnes of wheat from Hungary, 35,650 tonnes from Croatia, 18,207 tonnes from Austria and 1,752 tonnes from Serbia, SURS data showed.

SeeNews

Tags: talks, Slovenia, Ukraine, импорт, Serbia, wheat, demand