Yesterday, the Cerezas Argentinas SA company sent a cargo of cherries to China in a plane of Aerolineas Argentinas via the International Airport of Ezeiza. The cherries will arrive in China next Sunday, on the eve of the Chinese New Year.
This was the first air shipment of fresh cherries produced in Argentina to the People's Republic of China; it's a historical moment for the export of these quality fruits, which started being sent to this market by sea at the beginning of the month.
The shipment was made by Cerezas Argentinas SA, as they have the infrastructure that allows them to comply with the rigorous sanitary cold protocols in origin demanded by China.
Chinese technicians and representatives of the National Agricultural Food Health and Quality Service (SENASA) corroborated in situ that the merchandise remained in the chambers at the appropriate temperature, after which they enabled its transfer from Rio Negro (where Cerezas Argentinas has its headquarters) to Ezeiza, from where they were sent to China.
Cerezas Argentinas SA will become the first Argentinean company to land its fresh cherries in China, as this air shipment will arrive there next Sunday, almost 15 days before the 8 containers of cherries that were sent by sea from the Chilean port of Valparaiso on January 8. In that opportunity, Cerezas Argentinas also sent products.
The fruits dispatched from Ezeiza are of the Sweet Heart variety and will be marketed under the Extracherries brand. They will arrive to China on February 5, when the Chinese New Year is celebrated, a date on which cherry consumption increases.
"China is the world's leading importer of cherries. Carrying out this first air export is a real milestone," said Adolfo Storni, the president of Cerezas Argentina SA. "Chinese demand for cherries represents an enormous opportunity for local production to generate new investments that increase plantations and process technologies," said the manager, who predicted that "if Argentina achieves the same thing that Chile achieved in only 15 years, cherries could become one of the most exported fruits in the country."
To achieve this, Storni demanded that the withholdings on this type of export, which today are at 12 percent, be eliminated and called for the signing of a free trade agreement that reduces to 0 the Chinese import tariff, which is currently of 10 percent.
"This first aerial export that will arrive before the containers that were loaded at the beginning of January will arrive in China for the Chinese New Year, a period of time in which consumption of cherries increases," said the head of the company. "To have notion of the potential that the Chinese market has, Chile will export 8 thousand containers between November and February," he added.
All this operation began to take shape last December with the visit of the President of China, Xi Jinping in the framework of the G-20. At that time, the administration of Mauricio Macri managed to open that market for Argentine cherries.
Cerezas Argentinas SA, the only company that obtained an authorization to export by air from the Chinese authorities, was in charge of supplying the fruit that the Asian technicians evaluated and investigated for weeks, especially in the studies that were conducted previous to the approval of the G20.
Cerezas Argentinas SA is a company located in the Argentine Patagonia, which produces and sells fresh cherries and other fruits, such as pears and apples, since 2008. It is located 18 kilometers from the town of Chimpay, in the region called Middle Valley of Rio Negro. There it has about 1,200 hectares for fruit production, planned with the purpose of strengthening and boosting the development of fruit production and other related activities.