UK banana retail prices have finally started to climb with prices in the multiples up to 85p a kilo marking the first increase in some three years. It is still way behind where it should be in terms of reasonable returns and keeping pace with inflation, but the industry also has its eye on the new EU tariff regime due to come into effect next year.
This week Corbana, the national organisation of banana producers of Costa Rica, reiterated its concerns about the €230/metric tonne proposal.
Corbana president Romano Orlich said that Costa Rica is hoping for a favourable result from the arbitration process taking place at the WTO in Geneva.
He said the €230 a tonne tariff could have negative consequences for his country's industry. "We believe that the new EU proposed tariff at € 230 per metric tonne would cripple if not destroy the whole banana industry," said Orlich, "A significant increase in the present €75 import tariffs on dollar bananas could prove devastating to the Costa Rican banana growers. Furthermore, new EU tariffs could endanger the social and environmental efforts that we have been working on for more than 30 years", he stressed.
Meanwhile, banana giant Chiquita, which last week blew the whistle on alleged cartel practices in the European banana market, is likely to lose volume in its supplies to Wal-Mart in the US. The reduction of some 33 per cent is down to pricing, Chiquita revealed to the Cincinnati Post, and is greater than the US supplier had anticipated - in December 2004 Chiquita told sector analysts it was likely to only be a 20 per cent cut.
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