Data published by Italian trade organisation Fruitimprese for October 2010 has shown that the country's fresh produce exports continued to grow steadily towards the end of last year, despite concerns among industry operators about the conclusion of the summer fruit campaign.
Exports for the month grew 18.5 per cent to 3.36m tonnes in volume terms and 23.8 per cent to €3.14bn in value compared with the same period of 2009.
In contrast, import volumes fell 4.8 per cent year-on-year to 2.6m tonnes, but cost 3.8 per cent more in terms of value.
The balance of trade came in at €903m, some 137 per cent higher than in October 2009 and much closer to the symbolic one billion euro threshold.
Export volumes were reportedly up across all product categories, including citrus (up 105.6 per cent), vegetables (+24.1 per cent), dried fruit (+13.8 per cent) and fresh fruit (+13.8 per cent).
Aside from tropical fruit, which saw the value of its sales drop by 12.6 per cent compared with October 2009, all other categories enjoyed a better financial outcome.
On the imports side, Italy purchased a greater volume of vegetables (+2 per cent) and dried fruit (+32.7 per cent), but imported less citrus (-34.7 per cent), fresh fruit (-8.1 per cent) and tropical fruit (-1.8 per cent).
Similarly, of all imported categories, only dried fruit and vegetables showed an increase in value, by 31.1 per cent and 9.7 per cent respectively.
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