Chilean cherry producers will have a new Asian market from this season after getting the green light to export to Vietnam. For its part, Chile has authorised import of Vietnamese grapefruit.
Welcoming the news, Chilean Agriculture Minister Antonio Walker stressed the importance of securing new markets for Chilean products.
“The opening of Vietnam is part of our strategy to expand our market portfolio in case we should have problems in any of our other markets due to the pandemic,” he said.
“We believe that Southeast Asia is very important, since it has close to 600m people willing to purchase Chilean products and Vietnam is one of its most relevant markets for us.”
The news comes at a good time for the sector, just head of the start of the new export season and the celebration of Vietnam’s Lunar New Year festival.
Asoex president Ronald Bown noted that this was particularly important as Chile’s cherry output continues to grow.
“Together with the Cherry Committee and ProChile, we are in the process of developing a promotional campaign that will allow us to support the entry of this fruit to this market,” Bown said.
Chile exported 228,586 tonnes of cherries in 2019/20, of which around 90 per cent was shipped to China. This was an increase of 15 per cent on the previous season.
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