Croatia Importing $2.5bn Worth Of Food, Record Breakers For Pork

Croatia imported 2.5 billion USD worth of food in 2012, 1 billion USD more than it exported. The last time Croatia exported more food than it imported was back in 1993, when it exported 400 million USD more than it imported and it looks like the worrying trend is set to continue.

Currently Croatia imports a significant amount of beef from Argentina, Poland, Serbia, USA, Uruguay, New Zealand and Holland, fruit and vegetables from Morocco, Tunis, Cyprus, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania, India and Turkey, and milk and cream from Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, France, Slovakia and China. Last year Croatia’s pork imports reached a new record level.

Croatia imported 142 million USD worth of fresh and frozen pork in 2012, setting a new record as local production dropped. Hopes for a recovery do not bode well for Croatia if Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic example is anything to go by. When those 4 nations entered the EU local production dropped by around 30% and it still falling. Croatia is in the top ten importers of pork from the EU, together with Russia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, China, Philippines, Ukraine, Belarus and USA, says Vecernji list.