Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- EastFruit analysts note an increase in direct deliveries of fruits and vegetables from Uzbekistan to Russia in 2020, despite the coronavirus pandemic.

In the first four months of 2020, deliveries of Uzbek vegetables and fruits to the Russian market increased by 42% compared to the same period in 2019 and reached US$25.6 million, which was a new record for fruit and vegetable exports.

We focus on the fact that we are talking about “direct deliveries”, because we have repeatedly explained in our publications that some of the fruits and vegetables from Uzbekistan enter Russia through transit through other countries under the guise of products from third countries, and are not always reflected in Russian import statistics. You can learn more about this, for example, from material on the import of cherries in the Russian Federation.

Since we are talking about exports outside the traditional season, the supply structure was appropriate. The largest revenue to Uzbek exporters came from exports to Russia of greenhouse tomatoes - 19.3% of total export revenue. About 13.8% of revenue came from cabbage and 8% from lemons. At the same time, the export of greenhouse tomatoes from Uzbekistan to Russia in January-March 2020 more than doubled compared to the same period in 2019, the export of cabbage grew by 69%, and the export of lemon jumped right up to 2.8 times.

By the way, in the supply of cabbage to Russia, Uzbekistan took the second place in January-March 2020, second only to China, and in the supply of lemon the fourth, after Turkey, Morocco and Egypt.

Why the population of Uzbekistan does not support the course on the export of fruits and vegetables?

We note a sharp increase in the export of fresh cauliflower and broccoli during this period – by 2.3 times. Also very sharply, by 75%, the export of Uzbek prunes to the Russian market increased. Even more significantly - 5 times, increased exports of Uzbek dried apricots to Russia. This allowed Uzbekistan to take second place in the ranking of suppliers of these dried fruits to Russia after Turkey for the specified period, bypassing suppliers from the EU, Tajikistan, Armenia and China.

But the export of Uzbek raisins in the first four months fell by 34%. In addition, a slight decrease was noted in the export of fresh table grapes, frozen vegetables and dried fruit compote mixtures. At the same time, the export of fresh onions literally collapsed - in the first four months, the revenue from export of fresh onions to Russia from Uzbek exporters decreased by 14 times.

But the export of Uzbek frozen fruits to Russia grew 3 times, and the export of fresh carrots - 3.5 times.