The price of onions of the 2020 harvest has increased significantly, by 10-15%, over the last week of April in Moldova. By the beginning of May, the average wholesale price increased to 3 MDL/kg ($ 0.16/kg) and market operators assume that last year’s onion prices may continue to rise this month.
Producers argue that the rise in prices has been fueled by the emerging demand for exports. After many-month “waiting period”, some traders began to export Moldovan onions of average quality and above to Romania and some Balkan countries at the end of the second decade of April. Exports continue in May. Operators estimate the export potential of such onions at 1-1.5 thousand tons maximum. At the same time, the supply of onions of acceptable quality for retail chains has dropped sharply in the domestic market. The volume of imports of such onions has not increased yet. In this regard, further increases in purchase prices will be reasonable.
Read also: Onion market analysis of the EU, Central Asia, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe
Moreover, the increase in prices in May, will likely indirectly affect the assessment of the market by Moldovan onion producers, if not production plans. Many of them decided to stop producing onions this spring. Seed suppliers considered this a mistake, which “will lead to negative market consequences for consumers in the fall”.
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