FDBusiness.com

The EU agri-food trade balance stood at the record value of €1.5 billion in April 2016, compared to €1 billion in April 2015, according to the latest monthly statistical report. In the same month, exports were worth almost €11 billion.

For the past 12 months, EU agri-food exports reached a value of almost €129 billion, representing an increase of 2.8% compared to the same period one year ago. The increase of EU agri-food exports to China was particularly significant with +29% over the last 12 months. This month’s report focuses on pigmeat, one of the EU agri-food flagship products accounting for around 5% of the total agri-food value. Since the Russian sanitary ban was implemented in 2014, pork formerly exported to Russia has been mainly reoriented towards certain Asian countries such as China and the Philippines, which were already growing destinations before 2014. For April 2016, pork was the agri-food product that witnessed the highest increase in monthly export values.