Romania registered in 2017 a record harvest of cereals of 27.1 million tonnes, up 25 percent compared to 2016, wheat production soaring to all time high of over 10 million tonnes, according to a report of National Institute of Statistics (INS).
“Cereals for grains with significant shares in the area cultivated with cereals in 2017 were: grain maize (46.3 percent), common wheat (39.5 percent) and barley (8.8 percent),” the report said.
According to the report, the harvested production of wheat rose by 19 percent last year to 10.03 million t (from 8.4 million t in 2016), maize increased by 33 percent to 14.3 million t, while barley grew by 5 percent to 1.9 million t.
Last year, Romania was the fifth largest wheat producer among the 28 EU member states, with 6.6 percent of total EU wheat production, the second largest maize producer (22 percent) and the largest sunflower producer (28.1 percent).
Romania became during the last few years a large exporter of cereals in the Black Sea region mainly to Egypt and Middle-East countries.
In 2016, Romania exported around 7 million tonnes of wheat and 3.4 million tonnes of maize, according to the latest available data.