Banana exporters in Honduras are celebrating one of their best years in a decade, according to local press reports.

The main reason is a slight recovery in international banana prices, which put Honduras’s export earnings from the fruit up to $240 million from $208m the previous year.

Preliminary figures released by the Honduras central bank, BCH and the trade and industry ministry, show that this sum is the highest for six years despite flood damage and problems with European market access. According to the BCH, the highest average price in 10 years for a 40lb box of the fruit at more than $9 is the main reason for the uplift.

In volume terms sendings are likely to be slightly lower - somewhere between 25 million and 26m boxes - down from 29m boxes the previous year.

Sendings to the EU account for only 10 per cent of Honduran production, but growers are nevertheless nervous about how the new €176 a tonne tariff will affect them. “Our challenge this year will be to try and export 30m boxes,” one independent grower was reported. “But these unilateral measures serve only to strike fear into those of us who grow the fruit.”

Meanwhile, in Ecuador, the world’s largest banana exporter, the president of the banana exporters’ association AEBE has said more time is needed to assess the impact of the new EU regime. Alfredo Montalvo was reported in the Ecuadorian national press: “Fruit is continuing to arrive with customers and the market is performing just the same. The time has not been sufficient yet to make any evaluation. And Vicente Wong of Reybanpac, one of the country’s largest senders said the picture would be clearer in six months’ time.

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