The National Plant Health Service (Senasa) is working to gain access to major world markets for 164 plant products, said the head of the service, Jorge Barrenechea.
He said some of these products included hass avocado, Cherimoya, citrus fruits, grapes, passion fruit, vine plants, and cape gooseberries.
Obstacles
The head of Senasa said the country's sanitary and phytosanitary situation was one of the main problems to gain access to foreign markets, as well as the destination country's delay in responding.
"Some other issues include sensitive products for the importing country, the support of the private sector in Peru, the private sector's pressure in the importing country, and the lack of deadlines to conclude the access," said Barrenechea.
On the other hand, he said, Peru has gained access for 50 Peruvian plant products to different international markets in the last five years (since 2011), such as quinoa, to India; table grapes and mango, to South Korea; hass avocado and corn, to Chile, and grapes, to New Zealand.
Duration
Barrenechea said negotiations to gain access to external markets had accelerated to twenty to twenty-five products per year in the past two years.
"A market can be opened in two to six months when there is a political interest or support to open them. Normally, the United States would accept a new product every five years, but now it has accepted five products in eighteen months," he said.
The head of Senasa said they were working closely with the Ministry of foreign trade and tourism (Mincetur) to try to consolidating the presence of this institution in the trade forums.
Certification
The head of Senasa said that, by the end of 2016, the entity expected to increase the issuance of health certificates for plant products for export by 6.8%, and that they had already issued 90,000 documents, in comparison to the 84,283 documents issued in the previous year.
Senasa has issued 67,533 health certificates for plant products for export so far this year, which has allowed them to project that there will be an increase in the issuance of these documents by the end of the year. Many of these certificates are for fruits and vegetables.
These products can not enter another country without this certificate.
Source: elperuano.com.pe