The ban on the import into Bulgaria of certain goods from Ukraine comes into force. The introduced restrictions affect the import of wheat, honey, dairy and meat products, alcohol and several other basic food products. The goal is to support Bulgarian farmers.

Thus, Bulgaria becomes the fourth country in the EU, after Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, to impose such a measure. Transit of goods remains open.

The EU Agriculture Council is meeting tomorrow, where important decisions for the market of agricultural goods are expected. Sunflower processors have spoken out against the temporary ban on the import of raw materials from Ukraine. Their main concern is that the sunflower produced in our country is not enough to process the necessary raw materials for the market. The restrictions are expected to last until the end of June.

Processor: The ban on Ukrainian grain imports is to our detriment

"The ban on the import of Ukrainian grain is mainly to the detriment of sunflower processors. The capacities in Bulgaria many times exceed what the country produces within one economic year." Georgi Koinov, financial director of one of the largest companies for the production of raw sunflower oil, stated this to the National Television.

"The industry needs this import to be able to consolidate this capacity, in which hundreds of millions of euros have been invested in the last 10 years. Bulgaria has the opportunity to process up to 3.5 million tons of sunflowers on an annual basis for the production of sunflower oil. In addition, there is the possibility of processing up to 700,000 tons for the production of shelled nuts. Bulgaria is the largest exporter of shelled nuts in the world," emphasized Koinov.

He added that with a harvest of about 2 million tons per year, the industry can handle another 2 million tons of imports.

Koinov warned that there is a risk of bankruptcy in the industry.

"In the previous economic year, which began on September 1, 2021 and lasted until August 31, 2022, Bulgaria produced nearly 2 million tons of sunflower production. At the same time, another 1.4 million tons were imported. The industry processed 3.15 tons within the previous business year," Konov said, saying that these values did not prevent Bulgarian producers from realizing their production.

According to Georgi Koinov, the import of sunflowers until April 2023 is half compared to the previous economic year, and the processing has fallen to 1.4 million tons. As the reason, Koinov pointed to a decision by producers to withhold their production in anticipation of higher prices.

According to him, there is no difference in the price of sunflowers imported from Ukraine and those produced in Bulgaria.
"The price of sunflowers is international, it is dictated by the prices of sunflower oil. There are no other factors," said Georgi Koinov.

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/Bulgarian National Television