Moldovan fruit producers hold meeting to find solutions to challenges in sector

Chisinau, 7 December /MOLDPRES/ - Over 200 producers and exporters of fruits from all Moldova’s regions on 7-8 December participate in the Fruits Business National Conference. The event is organized by the Moldova Fruct Association, in partnership with the Rural Competitiveness and Resilience Activity in Moldova Project of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Investments Agency.    

Attending the event, President Maia Sandu appreciated the efforts of the fruit growers and highlighted the progress recorded in this sector in 2023.    

„We encourage the fruits producers and exporters to cooperate, in order to manage to deliver uniform and homogeneous quantities of fruits for export. The government, along with the Agriculture Ministry work on policies due to facilitate the activity of the agricultural producers, to give access to financing, including from European Union’s sources,’’ Maia Sandu said.     

For their part, the members of Moldova Fruct asked for the state’s involvement in the settlement of the most pressing problems of the sector.

„The fruits producers need access to cheap loans and attraction of resources available from EU’s programmes, a programme on the development of the irrigation sector based a sustainable management of waters’ use and the ensuring of a predictable and fluid regime of crossing the land border with the European Union,’’ the head of the Moldova Fruct Association, Vitalie Gorincioi, said.      

In 2023, the fruits producers and exports of Moldova managed to deliver record quantities of fruits for export. Sweet cherries, plums, table grapes enjoyed a high demand on the European Union’s market. Moldova this year exported 16.7 thousand tons of sweet cherries, 78,000 tons of plums and till late last November – 55,000 tons of grapes.