"According to the latest forecasts of the experts of the European Commission, the production of industrial tomatoes in the EU in 2018 will be reduced by 8%," said Carolina Zalusska, expert of agricultural markets at BNP Paribas.

According to the expert, the decrease in production in this region will be observed mainly due to a significant decline in the yields on the Iberian Peninsula, which will be as much as 22%, compared with the previous year.

"Because of the problems with pests and plant diseases, the total tomato harvest in Portugal in 2018 will be the lowest in the last 5 years," - says Ms Zaluska.

It should be noted that the total volume of world production of industrial tomatoes in 2018 will decrease, according to the forecasts, by 5% to 35.9 million tons. The largest percentage of decline experts forecast in China - 33%.

Mrs. Zalusska also said that according to the recent forecasts, in 2018 imports of processed tomatoes to the EU will increase significantly.

"In 2017 imports of processed tomatoes to the EU decreased by 24%, due to a sharp decrease in supplies from China. However, the shortage of Chinese products was partially compensated by the supplies from Ukraine, which in 2017 increased by as much as 17%.

Due to competitiveness of Ukrainian products on the EU market, we assume that the trend towards increasing imports from Ukraine will only intensify this year. According to the latest forecasts, in 2018, the general increase in imports of processed tomatoes in the EU market will be 15%, "- adds the specialist.

Let us remind that prices for fruit and vegetable products in the market of Ukraine, Poland and Spain are daily updated at this portal in the section "Analytics".

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