According to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), the most exported products were fats and oils, fish and fruits, reaching a combined weight of 55.6 percent of total exports (-1.4 percentage points over the same period 2020).

With the largest increases, the highlight was fish, with an increase of €104 million (+23.0 percent; -8.6 percent compared to 2019), and fats and oils, corresponding to an additional €74 million (+12.9 percent; +25.6 percent compared to 2019).

Fruit, which in 2020 had registered a significant increase (+ €82 million euros; +15.9 percent), registered the biggest decrease compared to the first nine months of 2020 (- €59 million euros; -9.8 percent), representing, even so, an increase of 4.5 percent compared to 2019.

Spain remained the main customer of Portuguese agricultural products and, as in the previous year, registered an increase in national exports in this group of products (+11.8 percent compared to 2020; +15.1 percent compared to 2019).

France also registered an increase of 16.7 percent compared to the same period of the previous year (+18.5 percent compared to 2019), surpassing Brazil and becoming the second main destination for exports of this type of products, mainly due to export of fruit.

Imports

With regard to imports, during that period, imported agricultural products reached €6,021 million, which corresponds to an increase of 8.2 percent compared to the same period of the previous year and 2.4 percent compared to the same period of 2019.

The most imported products were fish, meat and cereals, accounting for 45.5 percent of the total (-0.8 percentage points over the same period of the previous year and -3.9 points over the same period in 2019).

Cereals alone surpassed imports for the same period in 2019 (+ €57 million euros; +9.1 percent), despite the decrease recorded in 2020 (-6.9 percent).

As with exports, Spain continued to be the main supplier of agricultural products, with an increase of 10.6 percent (+4.4 percent compared to 2019) in imports from the neighbouring country, more than offsetting the observed decrease in the previous year (-5.7 percent).

Brazil was the second main supplier, with an increase of 16 percent compared to the same period of 2020 (+43.5 percent compared to 2019), surpassing the Netherlands.