According to EastFruit analysts, after the New Year holidays in Uzbekistan, apple prices resumed their growth after a long period of stability despite the traditional weakening of demand. In the first week of January 2024, wholesale apple prices jumped by an average of 20% and were 29% higher than in the same period of 2023.
The prices for Golden Delicious apples rose the most sharply – by 40% in just one week. Thus, the prices for this variety of apples have become equal to those of the Gala variety, which is only gaining popularity in the market of Uzbekistan.
The most popular and affordable New Year’s fruit, mandarin, has also become more expensive. Over the week, the wholesale price of tangerines increased by 13%, but these fruits were still relatively cheap – selling on average at 9 thousand UZS per kg wholesale, which is equivalent to $0.73 US dollars per kg. These mandarins are mostly imported from Pakistan and in the current season Pakistani mandarins were cheapest ever.
For comparison, the cheapest apple varieties were sold for 10 thousand UZS per kg or $0.81 US dollars per kg, and Golden Delicious apples were sold for 14 thousand UZS or $1.14 US dollars per kg.
It is interesting to note that, despite multimillion-dollar investments in intensive apple orchards over the past 12 years, Uzbekistan remains a net importer of apples, and the volume of imports of these fruits into the country tends to grow. The reasons for this phenomena have been described in our article Top 10 problems for intensive apple orchards in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries 3 years ago and are still very much valid.
Let us recall that Ukraine is one of the main suppliers of apples to Uzbekistan, and one of the leading apple producers in this country has even developed a special offer for fresh apple exports to Uzbekistan, adapting to the preferences of supermarket chains and consumers from Central Asia.
For more information: east-fruit.com