Serbia exported record of 2,3 million tons of corn

Since October 2014 until April 2015, Serbia imported record 2,3 million tons of corn and it is expected that by harvest, some 3 million tons of this grain will be sent to foreign markets – the head of the association, "Žita Srbije" Vukosav Sakovic said.

He said that we will, qualitatively, have better exporting results than the ones even before the issue with aphlatoxin but that, when it comes to foreign currency inflow, prices this year were not favorable.

He specified that the Government of Serbia, during April, approved fees for export of goods of local origin, grains and oilseeds among other things.

-The fee became effective as of April 10 this year and April has already seen export in percentages decreased for a bit less than 10%. There is justified fear that, if this remains effective, it will affect export and that it will decrease on monthly basis – Sakovic warned.

The fee was introduced for all the goods transported via rivers and more than 80% of grains and oilseeds are transported via rivers, Sakovic explained.

Apart from that, Sakovic adds, that fee for shipping firms which will transport goods from our ports to end user has been implemented as well as fee if loading normative of each port cannot be achieved.

Sakovic said the price of access to gas pipeline for drying houses increased by 500%, which may lead to shut down of a number of drying houses which are at the edge of profitability and negatively affect price and quality of agricultural products.