Greece: revamped exports

But sauces only account for 2% of the raw materials absorbed by exports and approximately 5% of the annual turnover. Greek operators mostly export pastes (38 300 mT in 2017) and relatively large volumes of canned tomatoes (close on 37 000 mT in 2017), a fact that is not so well known.
Foreign sales of paste have considerably drops over the past 20 years, mostly worn down by competition from more competitive processing regions and by an economic and industrial context that has been difficult within the country. This decline has mostly affected the segments of products with concentrations between 12° and 30°Brix (tariff code 20029031) and above 30°Brix (tariff code 20029091), in industrial pack (drums and bins), which used to make up the basis of the Greek industry's operations. In summary, tonnage has shrunk from more than 170 000 mT of finished products exported in 1998 to less than 40 000 mT last year, due to the drop in demand from the United Kingdom (-62% between 1997 and 2017), Italy (-99.6%), Germany (-83%) and the Netherlands (-63%). Over the past 20 years, the volumes delivered to countries of the western European Union have dropped 77%, from 111 400 mT in 1997 to 25 400 mT in 2017. A similar observation can be made for the trade flow to other countries of the European Community (in particular to Hungary), which have decreased by two thirds (from 28 000 mT to 9 600 mT), as well as the volumes shipped to Mediterranean Africa (Egypt and Libya), which have practically disappeared.
The collapse of foreign business in the paste sector has had a major impact in terms of revenue, which went from EUR 113 million for the period running 1997-1999 to approximately EUR 39 million for the period running 2015-2017.

It is a fact that the composition of Greek revenue from exports has been radically altered since the beginning of the 2000s. Once virtually the only profit-making category, pastes only generated 56% of the income stemming from foreign markets in 2017, at the end of a period of regular regression that has actually let canned tomato exports take up a lot more space. Last year, foreign sales of canned tomatoes (peeled, chopped, sliced, etc.) accounted for 37% of the revenue from export operations, whereas this sector only accounted for a modest 4% of the total in 1997. The progressive withdrawal of pastes from the distribution of revenue is also the consequence of the rapid development of sauce exports, which accounted for 7% of total foreign revenue in 2017. In the final count, canned tomatoes and sauces generated 44% of export revenue in 2017, and it would not be surprising if in a few years, these two categories account for an even greater share of the country's turnover from exports.

This virtually twofold growth in value for each tonne of raw materials aimed at the export market is a performance in and of itself, based on a balance that is financially more focused on the "products" components of export operations. This growth over 20 years is the best progression of the worldwide TOP13 processing countries, ahead of the performances of Germany, Italy, Portugal, China… It also ranks the tonne of Greek raw materials in seventh place among the world's leading processing countries, very close to the average of the TOP13 (EUR 199 or USD 217), behind the United States but ahead of Spain.

Outlets for Greek products
The European market, particularly in countries of western EU, is the main outlet for Greek foreign sales. Double concentrated and triple concentrated paste is shipped to companies for remanufacturing in the United Kingdom, Poland, the Netherlands and Germany. Canned tomatoes are exported to the United Kingdom, to Belgium and to the Netherlands. So a major proportion of the turnover originates in neighboring countries or countries that are relatively close geographically. Greek sauces are mainly aimed at the Japanese markets, which, along with Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia and the USA, among others, account for a very large quarter of the revenue generated by Greek exports.
Given the future exit of the United Kingdom from the EU, the trade context after Brexit will take on a major importance for Greece, as it will for Italy and other European countries whose commerce is largely aimed at this country. Over the past three years, the UK's invoice for supplies of Greek tomato products (EUR 22.5 million on average) has accounted for more than 36% of the total Greek turnover. It is also important to note that this figure has declined rapidly in recent years, falling from EUR 25.5 million in 2015 to EUR 17.5 million in 2017.

Some complementary data