Sector leaders from meat and poultry, salmon, food-processing and wines as well as Ronald Bown, of the Chilean Fresh Fruit Association held the unprecedented meeting least week ahead of a meeting due this week with the minister of agriculture álvaro Rojas. “We believe the climate is very favourable,” said Alberto Montanari, president of ChileAlimentos. “The number of consumers of Chilean food is going to double by 2010 to reach three billion and the government has stated that one of its challenges is to make Chile into a food-export force.”

The sector leaders highlighted areas of concern such as labour and health and safety regulations, the efficiency of Chile’s commercial offices abroad and the stagnated Chilean image campaign.

“There are problems that we share in common that are not getting the proper attention of the government,” said one of the sector leaders. The group acknowledged “interest” on the part of the government but one member felt there is a lack of direction in pushing Chile forward as a major food-export power. “My impression is that they don’t have a clear vision,” he said. “We need to know where we are going and what the government is prepared to do.”

Those at the meeting are also very clear that they want to maintain talks at a technical level. “It is not about making media statements, but working directly with the authorities and being as efficient as possible,” said René Merino, president of wine body ChileVid. “That is why as a group we do not have a firm structure and we have decided not to have any spokesmen.”

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