The Ecuadorean Banana Exporters Association (AEBE) expects the industry to hit an export record of 300m boxes this year, following a 5 per cent growth in volume to 286m boxes in 2011.
AEBE’s executive director Eduardo Ledesma claimed that exports would increase despite the ongoing impact of poor prices in the European Union (EU) and the lack of a free trade deal between Ecuador and the EU.
The EU remained the biggest market for Ecuadorean bananas last year, receiving 111.9m boxes, according to a report by SDP Noticias.
Russia represented the second-largest market (with 62.8m boxes), followed by the US (48.5m boxes), the southernmost areas of South America (21.9m boxes), eastern Europe (14.7m boxes) and the Middle East (13.3m boxes), among others.
Russia, eastern Europe and the Middle East, however, showed the most dynamic increase in sales, the report said, while sales to the US decreased.
Ecuador’s banana exports to eastern Europe rose by 94 per cent in 2011, to the Middle East by 29 per cent and to Russia by 26 per cent, while volume to the US contracted by 12 per cent.
According to Ledesma, sendings to Russia rose thanks to the strategies adopted by Russian buyers to receive the fruit directly from Ecuador rather than via intermediaries.
This year, AEBE said it would make efforts to boost banana sales to Turkey as well as recoup Ecuador’s presence in Japan, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.
