Last year’s agriculture boom can be seen in the traders’ accounts, after in the past few years they had posted cumulated turnovers of almost EUR800 million with up to 200 employees, while now, with the same number of employees, their turnovers together exceeded EUR1 billion.
Cargill last year kept its position as leader of the Romanian market, seeing a 63% turnover increase to EUR683 million. Last year’s rise was the second spectacular growth after in 2010 the trader saw its revenues up 87%.
Cargill has been confirmed as leader after Alfred C. Toepfer International, no. 2 on the market, boosted its turnover by just 14% to EUR436 million.
The traders’ rising results come as the past few agricultural years have been good, with Romanian farmers boasting significant harvests. Grain production alone brought EUR4.6 billion into the economy, according to Eurostat data.
The fight between grain giants is likely to be very tight, as they will have to invest significant amounts for the harvests of Romanian farmers, considering that wheat and barley harvests are expected to see a decline, while last autumn’s sunflower and corn crops may have been compromised by the drought.
Alfred C. Toepfer is currently expanding its silo network along the Danube by boosting the capacity of existing silos and by building new ones. The company is now expanding the capacity of its concrete silo in Giurgiu town and building a new storage facility from scratch in Moldova Noua, Caras-Severin county.
In a surprising move, Cargill has recently sold two silos – in Tandarei, Ialomita county, and in Braila. Company officials said at the time that the two facilities had been sold because they exceeded storage needs in Romania.
Swiss company Ameropa also surprised the market in 2011 by acquiring fertilizers producer Azomures. The deal was valued at EUR150-200 million.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)