The banana, which is one of the most sought-after Panamanian fruit exports worldwide, delighted the European market during its participation in Berlin's Fruit Logistica, the most important global fruit and vegetable trade fair. The fruit was show-cased by the Coobana company, which reached an agreement to export 25 to 30 weekly containers of bananas to Algeria and/or Ukraine.
This business represents $18 thousand per container and more than $540 thousand a week for the Panamanian company. It marks a milestone and the entry of this fruit to new markets, said the head of the Agribusiness Unit of the Ministry of Agricultural Development, Jose Anibal Rincon.
The company APSECU closed a deal for 20 containers of watermelons, worth $7,500 each, which represents $150 thousand weekly.
PanaFruit will export a test pallet of papayas to Andorra in March and, subsequently, it will ship a weekly container valued at $12 thousand to that destination.
Tropical Fruit negotiated sending 2 to 4 pallets of pineapples by plane to their client in Switzerland. They all are Fair Trade.
Verba Odrec achieved new agreements for the shipment of the pineapples by plane to Germany, Poland, Georgia, and Turkey.
Simply Natural Harvest is shipping 2 test pallets of mangoes to England and the USA to finalize negotiations.
The three days of Fruit Logistica allowed the country to define a road map that will successfully lead to the export of national fruits to new niche markets, where they had never been sold before.
The Panama Exports country brand is a project that was launched by the Ministry of Agricultural Development and the Ministry of Commerce and Industries during September 2017, which has already promoted exports of papayas, squash, pineapples, cobia, and Panama's great fruit diversity.
Source: panamaamerica.com.pa