EXPERTS’ OPINIONS: “For” or “Against” Ukrainian grain – Society – Bulgaria – NOVA News

The dispute over the import of Ukrainian grain has its supporters and opponents. The main question is what are the import data and how does it affect the market in our country? Last year, the import was only 23,000 tons of wheat. The ban on the import of Ukrainian grain entered into force at the beginning of May. According to Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov, the budget failed to collect BGN 146 million from VAT. Subsidies to be paid to manufacturers this year are about BGN 2 billion. The figures also divide opinions on imports.

According to economists, with or without a ban on the import of Ukrainian grain, it is minimal. Because of this, a very small part of it reaches the end users. This is also the reason why the supporters of the abolition of the ban believe that domestic manufacturers will not go bankrupt.

“Imports from Ukraine are not the problem, because we have no imports from Ukraine. Grain from Ukraine before the ban was 0.3% of our production. We produce so much, and imports from Ukraine are so little,” pointed out Georgi Angelov, an economist.

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“Bulgaria did not invent protectionism. We cannot save a single sector of the economy with protectionist policies. This will harm both the economy and the sectors we are trying to defend,” said Mihail Krastev, an economist.

The Bulgarian Agrarian Chamber is of the opposite opinion. They ask why only Bulgaria is abandoning the ban, while the other three countries that participated in it will continue it.

“The Poles, Hungarians and Slovaks must be some kind of people who live differently, who produce and import from Ukraine. And how did all these countries decide to continue the ban, only the Bulgarians… You see, there is not even an argument for not having a ban “, emphasized Svetlana Boyanova from the Bulgarian Agrarian Chamber.

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The Bulgarian Food Safety Association did not enter into the dispute, but presented results as to whether the grain from Ukraine was contaminated.

“I can say the figure – 575 samples taken from October 1, 2022 until the beginning of the ban in May of this year. There is no deviation from the indicators, which are heavy metals, radioactivity,” emphasized Dr. Galya Vikiova, Deputy Executive Director of the BABH .

Among the ideas is to write on the labels of various goods if they contain raw materials from Ukraine.