The National Federation of Fruit Growers stated that the imports of orange juice concentrate and price controls affected the placement of oranges in the last harvest.
"Domestic production of oranges exceeds 600,000 tons per year, more than enough to cover the intermediate demand (200,000 tons) and supply the fresh market. There's even the possibility of exporting," said Ricardo Bello, director of the federation, in a press release. But, he added, "there was more stimulus for the import of pulp than for the placement of the national harvest."
"Many companies, public and private, think importing is the way to cover their inefficiencies. Preferential exchange rates are a very attractive business because many poorly managed companies can get cheap dollars to attempt to cover their losses or substantially increase profits," said Bello.
Despite the high national production, he said, the companies made no serious efforts to use the orange and, once the harvest ended, appealed to the government to request foreign currency to import pulp.
"They barely made an effort during harvest to receive the fruit. The truth is we lost about 10% of the harvest in the field due to a lack of market. We are talking about the loss of 60,000 tons of oranges that failed to find a market," reiterated Bello.
Thus, the National Federation of Fruit Growers requested the government not to accept imports of concentrated orange juice amidst the harvest.
"We've asked the government not to allow the entry of concentrate orange juice under any circumstance amidst the harvest as it would seriously affect the single heading of domestic production that has continued to grow in recent years. Importing what we can produce, taking advantage of the few currencies that we have, is not playing clean with Venezuela," warned Bello.
Source: El Nacional