Stijović: Bulgaria offered serious quantities of quality food, several trucks have already arrived

The Minister of Agriculture, Water Management and Forestry, Aleksandar Stijović, said today, after a meeting with livestock farmers, that Bulgaria has offered serious quantities of quality foodstuffs (flour, cereals, animal feed) for import into Montenegro, and that several trucks have already arrived in the country.

He said that in the previous days he had meetings with the Prime Ministers of Bulgaria and Romania, and that they aimed to prevent Montenegro from depending only on imports from Serbia.

Stijović stated that Serbia is Montenegro's biggest partner, that 42 percent of goods are imported from that country, but "if someone doesn't want to sell to you, you have to look for an alternative to protect your citizens."

"We were promised that in the course of tomorrow, the Government of Serbia will lift the ban on exports to Montenegro, I believe that will happen, but it is our obligation to have an alternative solution," said Stijović.

He said that Serbia has the best ratio of price and quality in relation to the transport distance, and that this is a problem with other countries because the transport costs are higher.

"It is much easier to procure goods from Serbia".

Stijović said that they have food supplies for the next ten days, and that this was an alarm for them to look for alternative markets.

He explained that Romania offered to store food in that country, but at a significantly higher price.

"There is no danger that there will be no goods, here it is only a matter of price, quality and logistics," said the minister.