Unfavourable situations in the agricultural and food commodity market have caused considerable economic problems for primary producers, the TASR newswire wrote. This has been further exacerbated by the global economic crisis and may put some companies out of business, the Slovak Agriculture and Food Chamber (SPPK) warned in a statement on January 29.
SPPK based its concerns on several statistics: a 30 to 50 percent y-o-y fall in the prices of most grains and oil-producing plants, a rise in the prices of unprocessed cow's milk and insufficient profits from slaughtered animals and other agricultural and food products.
“The negative effects ... have been multiplied by the economic crisis, which has worsened business access to bank credit and other external financial sources,” claims SPPK.
According to SPPK, if its sector isn't able to lean on extra help from public financial resources, “the bread industry will be under threat of collapse”.
SPPK has set up a crisis-management team to monitor developments, draw up an analysis of the effects of the sales and financial crises on the its industry and submit proposals to the government’s Economic Crisis Council.
SPPK states that the European Union should send signals to its member countries in the form of intervention tools and mechanisms.
“The EU should stabilise the internal market by stimulating exports to third countries so that increasing the value of surpluses on the common market won't lead to confrontation between countries, which would mainly harm economically weaker states and their farmers,” reads the statement. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
