Impressive growth in Chile’s emerging markets for fresh fruit has helped insulate the country against the economic conditions in its main export destinations of the US and Europe.
According to a media report from the Chilean Fresh Fruit Association, the country saw fresh fruit exports increase by 7.2 per cent to more than 2.64m tonnes in 2010-11.
While exports to its main market of North America fell by 2.3 per cent to account for 34 per cent of its total exports, Chile saw strong growth in exports to Latin America, which now rates as its third-largest consumer base.
Following a sales increase of 26.3 per cent into the region last year, Latin America now accounts for one-fifth of Chile’s fresh fruit exports, stated the media release.
With its surging economy, Brazil has proven itself a leading light in the region. This has been reflected by increased sales into the country, the media release continued.
“Brazil is expanding at an important rate and we are seeing great potential being realised for all of our key products there,” said Chilean Exporters Association (ASOEX) chairman, Ronald Bown.
Sales into the Far East also spiked last year and an increase of 28.4 per cent saw its share of the Chilean export pie grow from 11 to 13 per cent.
“There was good growth registered in several countries in the Far East, but there has been a lot of work put into building our relationship with China and as a result of that and legislative advances between the two countries, direct imports into China have increased twofold in the last two seasons,” said Bown. “We have seen already that there is elasticity in the Chinese market and although we are starting from relatively small beginnings, it is already evident that the potential to expand further is there.”
The Middle East remains a relatively small market for Chilean fruit with just under 150,000 tonnes sold into the region last season. This, however, was a 10 per cent rise on the previous year and took the Middle East’s share of the overall Chilean deal to just below 7 per cent.
While consumers in the UK and the Eurozone continue to feel the squeeze of the current economical climate there, a small increase of 0.6 per cent of exports into the region was recorded.This was largely due to another uplift in exports to Russia, both direct and through the hands of Dutch importers, the media release stated.
Export growth to the largest western European markets, Germany and the UK, has remained fairly static for the last three seasons. Europe now accounts for 27 per cent of all exports, down from 29 per cent in 2009-10, the release continued.
“We have undertaken an extensive research project into the 27 Former Soviet Union markets and our exporters now have access to far more information about the markets and customers who will be their key targets in the next few years,” said ASOEX marketing manager for Europe and Asia, Christian Carvajal.
“While we have no intention of moving away from our established customer base in western and central Europe, we believe that the growth we need to see in Europe to justify the ongoing expansion of the production sector in Chile will largely come from markets to the east of the continent,” he said.
“As well as Russia, which now consumers more than 7 per cent of all Chilean fruit, according to official figures - but probably closer to 10 per cent if we factor in the fruit that is shipped into Russia via the Netherlands - we have made some interesting inroads in Turkey, Poland and the Ukraine. We hope to see our members continue to benefit from the work we are doing there to strengthen ties with importers, retailers and wholesalers in the years to come.”
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