The main share of March shipments of Moldovan apples in 2026 went to just two countries: just over 5,000 tons went to the Russian Federation and just over 4,000 tons of goods went to Romania. The rest of it went to Saudi Arabia and CIS countries plus Ukraine – a little over 400 tons for each of these two destinations.
Why did exports decline?
The twofold drop in apple exports from Moldova in March suggests sad thoughts. The drop in external supplies in the first month of spring, in which traditionally exports of apples from fruit storage facilities sharply increase, cannot be explained only by last year’s low harvest and, consequently, by modest stocks of export-quality goods. In 2025, the apple harvest in Moldova was even higher than in the previous two years.
According to representatives of the Moldova Fruct Association, unfortunately, last month’s modest exports of Moldovan apples “is the effect of several negative factors: high marketable residues of the 2025 crop in the European Union and logistical problems due to the war in the Middle East.
Although the second of these two factors is not the main factor. Nevertheless, as Iurie Fale, executive director of Moldova Fruct, noted in a conversation with Logos Press correspondent, “some of our trade partners claim that because of the attacks on the Persian Gulf countries, they had to “on the fly” change the logistics of apple supplies – to redirect them to the European market”.
As a result, in the context of rising energy prices and the accompanying plume of goods and services, including logistics, the prices and sales of apples in Europe “went up”. Although apples are traditionally the cheapest fruit in the Northern Hemisphere in winter and spring.
