Asia’s pull factors are likely to become more pronounced for New Zealand avocado exporters over the next 12 months, with the likely opening of the region’s two most populous markets.
India is set to open its doors to New Zealand avocados for the first time this season, while Chinese market access also in the pipeline.
The opportunity to tap into both countries rapidly expanding middle-classes is being viewed as a major win for the industry, but JP Exports’ general manager Lesley Shield has warned challenges still lay ahead.
“India is in the final stages of granting New Zealand full phytosanitary access,” Shield says.
“There are however difficulties with transit times being about four weeks and upon arrival a lack of infrastructure.
“China is notoriously slow at approving access to new commodities.
“New Zealand has prepared a pest list, and a pest risk analysis was due to commence but is yet to happen.”
In the immediate future, South East Asian markets such as Singapore and Malaysia are offering good returns, with Shield suggesting more needs to be done to develop trade channels in this region.
“The market is growing in South East Asia and as the New Zealand crop continues to grow in production, South East Asia must be seen as a very important market to continue to develop,” Shield says.
“We are working hard to encourage our South East Asian customers to not only take a traditional small fruit but to also encourage their consumers to buy larger pieces of fruit.”
The first crop estimate for the 2013-14 season puts New Zealand production between 3.5m and 3.8 m trays, a significant improvement on last year’s yield which returned under 2.9m trays.
Exports are expected to exceed 3.5m trays, with around 80 per cent of this figure likely to be sold in Australia, due to a low production volume in Western Australia.
“Australia remains our largest export market but we are starting to see more exporters leveraging the opportunities in Asia,” Scoular says.
“We are seeing excellent demand in Japan, Singapore, Korea and Malaysia, and this is only likely to grow.”
