The next meeting of the Spanish Working Group for Fruits and Vegetables, which will be held in Madrid next week, will bring together those responsible for the administrations involved in the opening of new markets for Spanish fruit and vegetable exports, including the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce, the Ministry of Agriculture and representatives of the sector associations, including FEPEX. The meeting will serve to discuss the status of the opening requests planned in previous meetings and to make decisions regarding priority markets and products.
Starting the administrative procedures necessary for the opening of a new market requires that the sector define product-country binomials, depending on where it is interested in exporting. At the moment, work is underway for the opening of the Argentinian market to peaches, nectarines and cherries; of the Chilean one for apples; of the Canadian one for tomatoes and cherries; of the Indian one for nectarines, peaches and plums; of the Mexican one for stone fruit; of the Peruvian one for kakis and citrus fruits; of the South African one for mangoes and blueberries, etc.
In addition to the work to start the export of fresh products, the Group has also been addressing the opening of markets in Argentina, Mexico and Peru for the sale of seeds and nursery plants.
The Working Group for Fruits and Vegetables is of special interest for the fruit and vegetable sector, brought together by FEPEX, because it is decisive in market diversification policies.
According to the latest data from the Department of Customs and Special Taxes, updated on September 2019, fruit and vegetable sales to non-European countries amounted to 231,781 tons (14% more than in the same period of 2018) worth 309 million Euro. These are good statistics, according to FEPEX, even though the share of fruit and veg in Spain's global exports is still small, accounting for 5% of the volume and value during the aforementioned period, which stood at 9.8 million tons worth 9.961 million Euro.
Source: fepex.es
