Nevertheless, first of all, let’s talk about sad things. According to the information of the organizer of the final conference of fruit business – Association Moldova Fruct – the fruit harvest-2025, alas, for the reasons mentioned above, turned out to be lower or, in the best cases, at the level of the last year.
Thus, according to the adjusted (at the end of autumn) forecast, this year’s apple harvest in the country amounted to 412 thousand tons (for comparison: in 2024 – 408 thousand tons, in the best years of the current five-year period – more than 600 thousand tons), plums – 95 thousand tons. tons), plums – 95 thousand tons (95 thousand tons and more than 130 thousand tons), table grapes – 85 thousand tons (80 thousand tons and about 90 thousand tons), cherries – 16 thousand tons (15 thousand tons and more than 20 thousand tons), apricots – 4 thousand tons (7 thousand tons and 17 thousand tons).
However, there are optimistic nuances in this area as well. Initially, after two waves of late spring frosts, the situation in the area of potential stone fruit production seemed catastrophic. In the end, it turned out to be not so bad, especially the cherry and plum crops. And the apple harvest, which in summer Moldova Fruct experts cautiously predicted at the level below 300 thousand tons, turned out to be even slightly better than last year’s (however, also quite modest).
Physical export of fruits, according to the data for the first ten months of 2025, does not look too bravura. Thus, during this period, Moldova exported slightly more than 61 thousand tons of plums – it is about the same amount as for the whole last year. The experts of the organization believe that “by the end of 2025, there is reason to hope that the final export of Moldovan plums will exceed last year’s figure by more than 10 thousand tons”. In fact, by the end of this year, Moldovan plum is the only commodity item, for which there is a real chance to exceed last year’s physical exports. Also, exporters can still fully (or close to it) choose the duty-free quota-2025 for the supply of plums from Moldova to the European Union (61 thousand tons).
For other commodity items in the segment of stone fruits the indicators of physical exports are already lower than last year. Thus, this year Moldova sent to foreign markets 12.4 thousand tons of cherries (in 2024 – 13.6 thousand tons), apricots – less than 4 thousand tons (about 12 thousand tons).
Exports of table grapes from January to October inclusive in 2025 amounted to almost 36 thousand tons, including almost 30 thousand tons of grapes from the current year’s harvest. In principle, it is possible that by the end of this year Moldova will increase the rate of table grape exports and, as a result, will approach or even surpass last year’s figure (about 59 thousand tons). But it is still very far from the “export dream” of Moldovan winegrowers – 100 thousand tons. Although in summer, given the very good condition of vineyards, they just predicted external supplies within the coveted 100 thousand tons, with the harvest at the level of 150 thousand tons. But the fall rains dampened hopes.
Alas, the chances that exports of apples at the end of this year will be higher than last year are nil. For ten months of 2025 – less than 92 thousand tons, for the whole of last year – more than 130 thousand tons. Moreover, this fall monthly external deliveries of new crop apple did not exceed 6-8 thousand tons. This means that growers and traders have stored relatively much, possibly up to 100 thousand tons, of apple of the crop-2025 in the hope of selling it on the “fresh market” in winter-spring. However, this is from the category of probability. Whether real or imaginary is still a question.
What is encouraging is that in 2025 the financial proceeds from fruit exports will definitely be higher than in 2024. By the end of November, Moldova exported more than $259 million worth of seed and stone fruits. Last year’s exports totaled $249.8 million.
According to the information announced by the Executive Director of Moldova Fruct Iurie Fale at the annual XI conference “Fruit Business of Moldova”, the top 3 most expensive export products of Moldovan horticulture this year are: apples ($80,4 mln), plums ($65,8 mln) and table grapes ($45,7 mln). The same was the “leading triad” of export products of Moldovan horticulture last year.
By the volume of cash receipts from the last year’s level, export of apples lags a little (by $0.9 mln) and external supplies of grapes lag behind (more than $20 mln). Export of fresh and dried plums (plus $16 mln and $4 mln, respectively) provided the Moldovan horticulture sector with an increase in cash receipts this year.
It is also interesting that this year average prices for exported fruits have increased in comparison with their last year level in Moldova, in some cases – sharply.
Thus, in particular, Moldovan cherries of crop-2025 were exported at an average price of $2356/t, while last year the average invoice was much lower – $1294/t. Apricot also “shot up” in terms of prices this year – the average price was $1513/t, last year it was only $858/t.
For other commodity items the price dynamics is positive, but more restrained. Thus, the average price of export apple this year compared to its last year’s level increased slightly – $731/t against $609/t. And the price of plum changed insignificantly – $823/t vs. $804/t.
