Belrose Inc’s 13th annual international competitiveness study of 29 apple producing countries published in its World Apple Report this month has ranked Chile and New Zealand in the top two places respectively as competitiveness globally appears to have hit a stalemate.
The report showed that ranked on production efficiency, infrastructure and inputs, and financial and market factors, the two southern hemisphere countries were some way ahead of next placed Italy, but there was relatively little movement in the table. The strongest competitors remain near the top of the pecking order and the weakest near the bottom, little changed from their rankings of last year. The report’s authors suggest that weak profitability dogging the global apple job for the past 10 years may be partly to blame as producers and senders have not been able to re-invest as they would like. It also points to increased costs for most inputs such as labour, water and land.
The US was ranked in fourth place pushing France down to fifth with Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Japan making up the remainder of the top nine. Canada was one of the biggest movers falling three places to tenth overall. The UK was ranked 16, bettering last year’s position by one.
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