The ongoing process of getting the United States to allow the entry of Argentine lemons is expected to benefit Argentina's sweet citrus sector. "We have managed to sign bilateral agreements with the United States and one of our purposes is to stimulate trade relations. Thanks to this process, the country's lemons now have an agreement to enter the US soon and the next step would be to get permission for sweet citrus. This agreement hasn't been signed yet, but we believe it will be signed in the short term," said Andrés Fraga, of Coexco.
"Argentina's main competitor is South Africa, followed by Peru, and Uruguay, and even though we would enter the US market at about the same time, our mandarins are recognized worldwide, which gives us an advantage in international markets. Our main varieties continue to be the Satsuma, Clementine, Nova, and Murcott varieties, and we export to markets around the world. There were two weeks when we were unable to export the first varieties mainly, but we managed to organize ourselves and, since then, we haven't had any major problems to continue exporting," Fraga said.
Argentina's mandarin production remains stable, with growing exports to various markets worldwide. The Murcott variety continues to be the most prominent variety thanks to its physiological characteristics. "The harvest of this variety will begin in about 20 days and forecasts are pretty good because the heavy rains that affected the country haven't affected the harvest so far. Weather conditions have been favorable. The Satsuma variety has been exported with very good results. The clementine harvest came to an end last week, we are currently working with the nova variety, and we'll finish with the Murcott variety," Fraga said.
For more information:
Andrés Fraga
Coexco
T: +54 3329 425452