"Chile sold 487 million dollars' worth of cherries to China; a spectacular figure." This is what Rafel Sabat posted on his Twitter account; a figure which almost doubles the shipments made in 2013, when they totalled approximately 249 million dollars.
It is clear that the Asian market is the main destination for this Chilean fruit, as it accounts for 83% of the total export volume, with China receiving 96% of the volume shipped to Asia.
The United States remains in second place with 8.6% of all exports, followed by Latin America, with 4.7%, and Europe, with 3.7%.
"This has been a very challenging season because of the large volume of cherries and the weather conditions we had during the campaign (December 2014), which forced us to be very careful about quality after the rains to ensure the delivery of a consistent product," stated Cristian Tagle, president of the Cherry Committee at ASOEX.
While the rains mentioned by Tagle had a significant impact on the exportable volume, the estimated production in 2014 reached a spectacular 101,033 tonnes, which triples the 32,000 tonnes reached in 2005.
Another remarkable fact is that the acreage devoted to cherries in Chile went from 7,125 hectares in 2005 to 16,932 hectares in 2013.