site.bta2022 Price Increase in Wholesale Food Products in the Range of 25-50%

Sofia Commodity Exchange CEO Vasil Simov said on Wednesday that the apocalyptic forecasts for the 2022 stock markets did not turn out to be true - there was only a scare due to the war in Ukraine. Bulgaria does not have a problem with oil, bread and animal food because it is a producer of these commodities, said Simov. He added that the price of raw materials has not increased much, the rise in prices of food commodities is due to the rise in energy prices and the expensive dollar.

Forecasts for the world grain harvest are optimistic. Simov expects 790 million tonnes of wheat harvested in 2022 and an increase in the harvest in 2023. For this year, experts forecast the global corn harvest to surpass 1.2 billion tonnes.

In 2022 Sofia Commodity Exchange (SCE) made transactions for nearly BGN 648 million, which is 27% more than in 2021.

The trend of trading mainly with industrial goods, mostly with energy carriers on the SCE, remains. In 2022 the SCE had transactions for grain totaling just over BGN 58.1 million and for foodstuffs for over BGN 1.1 million for food products.

In 2022 the increase in the prices of wholesale food products in Bulgaria was in the range of 25-50%, with the rise being in line with the price movement on the world stock markets. This comes as a result of Bulgaria increasingly becoming an integral part of the global market space.

In Bulgaria the 2022 price of oil in one-litre bottles has risen by 28% from BGN 3.50 per litre at the beginning of the year to BGN 4.47 on average in December, the SCE said. White refined sugar in one-kilogram packets was sold wholesale at BGN 1.38, and at the end of the year at BGN 2.13, which is an increase of 54%.

Experts forecast total EU grainproduction in 2023 at 282.5 million tonnes compared to 20.8 million tonnes in 2022. The new harvest in Bulgaria is expected to be 400,000 tonnes more than the current one, which is 6.32 million tonnes with an average yield of 53 tonnes per hectare.