Potatoes: Pakistan among top exporters to Russia

KARACHI: Pakistan has turned out to be one of the major suppliers of potatoes to the market of Russian Federation. Pakistan entered the group of top three for the first time ever along with Netherlands and Egypt, as in previous years Pakistan’s potato exports to Russia were insignificant. In first 7 months of 2011 Russia imported 2 times more potatoes than in whole year of 2010, according to Fruit-Inform project. In the whole season of 2010-11 Russia’s potato imports grew almost 4.5 times in comparison with previous season due to sharp decrease of domestic potato production in the country because of bad harvest. Expansion of Russia’s potato import geography is connected with abolition of an import duty on potatoes from January to August 1, 2011, because of lack of supply in Russian internal market.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 24^th,  2011.