Ukrainian exports have been increasing since January up until October this year.
In January-October, 2015, Ukrainian tomato exports to the EU have almost reached 4,000 tons, an increase from last year. From July-October 2015, apple exports totalled 2,020 tons against just 113 tons in the same period of the previous year.
Belarus is the leading export market for Ukrainian tomatoes with a share of 75% of Ukraine's total exports. The country is also the main market for Ukrainian apples.
Ukraine has shipped about 15,000 tons of produce to the Belarusian market and it is believed that a large part of those volumes were then re-exported to Russia to get around the ban on imports from Ukraine. Another reason for this speculation is the fact that Ukrainian apple exports to Belarus peaked in October, the month when Crimea blockade started and resulted in the stop of exports to Russia through Crimea.
Not being able to ship to Russia directly has negatively affected exports of Ukrainian tomatoes, total exports amounted to about 20,000 tons, half as high as in the same period of the previous season.
