Ecuador’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and the Association of Banana Exporters (AEBE) have signed a cooperation agreement to develop a national banana brand to differentiate the country’s bananas in global markets and improve competitiveness.
The ‘Banana of Ecuador’ brand will denote that the product has been grown in compliance with a set of established quality, social and environmental standards.
“We are not only the leading banana exporter in the world but we also have the best quality,” said minister Juan Carlos Cassinelli.
AEBE executive director Eduardo Ledesma said the agreement “recognises the importance of the banana industry to the country’s economy”.
There are around 162,000ha of banana plantations in Ecuador producing around 7.5m tonnes of bananas a year. In 2016 exports totalled US$2.655bn, making the fruit the country’s leading export after oil. Russia was the biggest market (21.4 per cent), followed by the US (15.5 per cent) and Europe.
