Fernando Sanchez, manager of government affairs for the multinational Tela Railroad Company, a subsidiary of Chiquita Brands, said that the company is expected to export 12 million boxes of bananas this year.
"Those are our expectations for this year. Last year we exported about 11 million boxes and, according calculations, each box of bananas made approximately $7 million dollars for the country," he said.
Sanchez acknowledged that there had been a decrease in production and exports when compared to the export levels of the seventies and eighties; the result of a number of natural factors such as hurricanes and earthquakes and to other problems with the labour sector.
However, he said, "everything is going very well and we are confident that we will succeed; recently we bought a farm that had previously been ours, we have recovered it, we have faith in the country and we know things are going to improve."
Sanchez asked the new government to implement justice, as that's important. Fortunately, the company does not have any problem of this nature, but they realize that a legal certainty is crucial for those investing money.
The executive explained that the company had recently partnered with the Irish company Fyffes, thus becoming the largest producer of bananas in the world, and that they were optimistic that this partnership would be a success.
Source: Proceso.hn