INDUSTRIAL NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

The Chilean Fruit Exporters Association (ASOEX) has launched its 2017-18 export season for cherries, blueberries and other products in China with a workshop for importers at Shanghai’s Huizhan Fruit Market. At the event, the Chilean organisation presented the new season for fresh fruit exports, focusing special attention on table grapes, cherries, kiwifruit, avocados, plums and blueberries; exports that will be supported by promotions to encourage not only greater consumption, but also the positioning of Chile as the number one supplier of off-season fruits to China.

ASOEX’s Marketing Director for Asia and Europe, Charif Christian Carvajal, said: “We met with importers from the Huizhan Fruit Market in Shanghai, China with the aim of
analysing last season’s Chilean fruit exports, and giving advance forecasts for the current campaign, focusing in particular on promotional work that we will carry out to encourage consumption of Chilean blueberries and cherries in China.”

As part of the 2017-18 season promotional campaign in China, ASOEX will hold meetings with fruit importers, buyers and distributors at the Guangzhou, Beijing, Shenyang and Chengdu wholesale markets, in addition to meeting with Shanghai-based importers.

Carvajal said that one of the aims of Chilean fruit sector was to gain access for Chilean fresh pears and citrus to China, as well as increasing consumption of cherries, blueberries, avocados and nectarines. He added that every one of the actions had been made possible thanks to the combined efforts of the Chilean fruit export sector and ProChile through the Promotional Fund for Agriculture Exports of Chile’s Ministry for Agriculture.

Chile is the leading exporter of fresh fruits to the Southern Hemisphere, explained Carvajal, having shipped more than 2.6 million tonnes of fresh fruits to different destinations during the 2016-17 season. Of this total, China accounted for 48.3% of all Chilean fruit exports to Asia. In terms of products, table grapes were the most exported product to China from Chile during the season, accounting for 42% of total exports to the country, followed by cherries at 23.5%, plums at 11.7%, kiwifruit at 7.6%, avocados at 5.4%, red apples at 5% and blueberries at 3.2%.