RESEARCH ON THE TRENDS IN ROMANIA'S MILK AND DAIRY PRODUCTS FOREIGN TRADE

The paper aimed to analyze the main trends in Romania's milk and dairy products foreign trade using a specific system of indicators destined to create a comprehensive image on the topic, based on the empirical data provided by the National Institute of Statistics and Eurostat for the period 2007-2012 and to set up the forecast for the 2013- 2015 horizon, based on and using the fixed basis index, average change method, and comparison method. Milk and dairy products trade balance is a negative one, Romania being a net importing country. Despite this, both export value increased 2.9 times and the import value increased 1.3 times. The amount of milk exported by Romania will account for 1,673.8 thousand hl, and milk imported quantity for 6,119.8 thousand hl according to the forecast for the year 2015. In 2015, the forecast for Romania's milk export value is Euro thousand 96,258.75 and for milk import value Euro thousand 259,270.2. Romania's export value of dairy products accounted for Euro million 6.6, representing 0.06 % of the world exports, placing the country on the 56th position. Also, it comes on the 23rd position among the EU exporting countries with a very small contribution of 0.1 % to the EU export of dairy products. The main markets where the Romanian dairy products are sold are Italy, Belgium, Spain, United Kingdom and Greece. The import of dairy products is supplied by Hungary, Poland, Czech Rep, Italy, and Germany.