Asia has overtaken the US as Chile’s largest fruit export market through the first six months of the 2020/21 export season (1/9/2020 to 1/4/2021) according to new data from Asoex.
Exports to Asia during this period grew by 15.28 per cent year-on-year to 613,691 tonnes, an increase driven by the growth of cherry exports. Meanwhile, exports to the US dropped by just over 10 per cent year-on-year to 476,843 tonnes.
The US has accounted for 52 per cent of Chile’s table grape exports, 72.3 per cent of its blueberry exports and 91 per cent of mandarin exports. As for Asia, it has received 94.9 per cent Chile’s cherry exports, 50.5 per cent of plums and 40.2 per cent of nectarines, with China the destination for a significant amount of this volume.
Rounding out Chile’s other major export markets for the 2020/21 season so far were Europe with 276,432 tonnes, Latin America 253,436 tonnes, the Middle East with 35,456 tonnes and Canada with 30,488 tonnes.
Chile has shipped 1,686,346 tonnes of fruit in total so far in the 2020/21 export season, an increase of nearly 1 per cent compared to the same period in 2019/20, according to Asoex.
Table grapes were Chile’s largest fruit export topping 490,726 tonnes, closely followed by cherries at 352,783 tonnes. Other major fruit exports included apples(238,087 tonnes), plums (118,758 tonnes) and blueberries with (117,844 tonnes).
In the case of apples, their main market was Latin America which took 55.9 per cent of Chile’s export.While pears 54 per cent of pears and 75 per cent of avocados were exported to Europe.
