Brussels, 01/10/2002 (Agence Europe) - A report by the Organisation for European Co-operation and Economic Development (OECD) has demonstrated that six accession candidate countries from Central Europe (the Baltic countries, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania) have not got back to the agricultural production levels of 1990 and have notched up a trade surplus in agri-food products.
According to this report, Slovenian agricultural production is greater than 10 years ago (+10%) but external trade out of Slovenia is in deficit. Although Bulgaria has a trade surplus in agri-food products, its production is less than 40% of its 1990 level. The gap for Baltic countries also remains considerable. In 2001 Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia produced twice as little as in 1990: the detailed analysis f trade indicates increasing regionalisation of exports and imports. Almost half CEEC sales are to the European Union or neighbouring Central European countries. In general, the agri-foods sector share of total exports has decreased: it represented 3.8% of trade in Romania and 12.3% for Lithuania.
The OECD also observes that assistance to agriculture in Central and Eastern European countries are increasingly based on the model of countries in the Community (Slovenia is a perfect example), given that payments per hectare and per head of cattle are generalised and that levels of aid to producers remains on average less than that in the EU.