The trends are not good. A negative balance of 16.6 million euro was recorded in 2015, which meant that imports of wine amounted to 29 million euro compared with 12.4 million euros made in exports, Zaklina Jurisic of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce said at the panel discussion organised by the Agrobiz.hr web site and associations of reporters that cover the agricultural sector.
Most imported wines come from Macedonia which account for 40.5% of the value of imported wines, followed by France (10.4%). Croatia imports wines at an average price of 1.19 euro per litre the panel heard.
At the same time, Croatia's highest export of wine is to Bosnia and Herzegovina, which accounts for 34.4% of exported wine, followed by exports to Germany (13.5%). Wine is exported at an average price of 2.51 euro per litre.
Croatia's wine consumption is close to the EU average, that is some 25 litres per capita annually.
Jurisic underscored that it was necessary to promote wine, work on modernising production and that winemakers should join forces.
Consultant Djuro Horvat warned that while nearly 20 million litres of wine had been imported in 2015, only 21 samples were inspected.