Republic of Bashkortostan signed “honey” agreement with Saudi Arabia

Signing of the agreement to the long-term contract between Bashkir bee-keeping center and the firm “Honey Gardens” from Saudi Arabia has taken place today in the Ministry of industry and innovational policy RB.

For the Republic this is not far from the first experience of communication with foreign partners on the occasion of Bashkir honey export beyond Russia. Six years ago Bashkortostan started exporting honey and honey products to the USA and Western Europe but at the same time Bashkir bee-keepers failed to increase the sales of Bashkir honey in the European market for this period of time. The matter is the price. If one kilogram of honey in the West costs approximately 150 rubles, Bashkir bee-keepers manage to sell their bee products even in the local market at 350-400 rubles. In spite of high quality of our honey Europeans don’t want to pay extra for this product.

“This is the reason why for the last four years we are actively engaged in building trade cooperation with Arab countries. They are ready to pay for quality and for the expensive package, made of wood and painted in Bashkir style. It is very profitable for us to sell our honey and bee-keeping products in the Middle East and at that its cost satisfies both us and our Arab partners” – the director of the “Bashkir scientific-research center on bee-keeping and apitherapy” Amir Ishemgulov says.

The first pilot lot of Bashkir honey and bee-keeping cosmetics will be delivered for Saudi Arabia in August 2011 and the main goal is to determine what meets high demand among local population and in what volumes and what not.

As the Bashkir authorities hope, the agreement, signed today, will become a good impulse for development of bee-keeping in Bashkortostan and one more financial source for the Republican budget.