The coronavirus health crisis in China has also become a crisis for Chilean exporters, who have the Asian giant as their main trading partner.
Sectors such as fresh fruit, forestry, mining and also wine have been faced with an unprecedented logistical problem due to the port paralysis caused by the crisis and the measures adopted by the Chinese government to deal with it, such as the extension of the Chinese New Year holiday.
In this way, more than two thousand containers of Chilean products were stranded in Chinese ports at the most critical moment, a figure that has been gradually decreasing over the days, but which has put local exporters in a bind, especially of cherries and blueberries, due to the perishability of fresh fruit. In this sense, the loss of quality of the fruit can translate into a rejection by the importer, as well as a penalty in price.
In the case of Ñuble, which sends 581% of its exports to China, including 921% of its fresh cherries, the outlook is much more worrying for those who were unable to enter the market before the crisis broke out.
Cherries are a highly sought-after fruit in the country, especially during the Chinese New Year festivities. Blueberries, meanwhile, are a product that is beginning to conquer markets and are showing a sustained increase in consumption, but much lower than that of cherries.
Despite the Chilean government's constant monitoring of the situation, port and logistics activity have not been able to return to normal, nor have traditional marketing chains, since the end of the extended holiday.
Specifically, the Chilean Fruit Exporters Association (Asoex) warned that sales expectations were not being met and that prices have been lower, anticipating that the Chilean fruit export sector could see a decrease in its income of around 100 million dollars.
Lower prices
In this regard, the fruit producer and exporter (blueberries and cherries) and leader of the Ñuble Farmers Association, Álvaro Gatica, commented that "things have returned to normality very slowly, the containers of cherries have not been sold as quickly as we would have liked, but they have been selling out, and it has been increasing a little day by day, but at the same time, at a lower price, which we estimate at 30-40 percent less, largely due to the fact that there is less demand."
Asked about the quality of the fruit after the long wait at the ports, the leader said that "the fruit in general, except for some varieties that have been waiting for several days, is in good condition."
On the other hand, he acknowledged that thanks to better post-harvest management and the so-called “Cherry express”, ships that since last year have been transporting cherries from Chile to China in just 22 days (the normal time is 30-32 days), “and therefore, the fruit arrives with much better quality and lasts longer, and that also helped many to enter the market before the crisis.”
Gatica explained that “sales have been slow because their internal distribution is very poor, there is no distribution because there are no people to distribute, people do not go out, and that has been the biggest problem, so, e-commerce sales have worked, but there is no distribution.”
He added that while cherries have been badly affected by the crisis, blueberries have also suffered greatly, “which had been happening since before the crisis, due to the large quantity of cherries that were arriving. This influenced the price of blueberries to drop by around 20%, because the Chinese prefer cherries, and well, after the coronavirus, blueberries have simply not been marketed.” In this sense, he estimated that the price drop deepened, reaching 50% or even more.
Finally, the businessman clarified that it is not true that most of the cherries from Ñuble entered China before the crisis. “The producers of the Regina variety, which is later, were not able to sell in full before the coronavirus, and in Ñuble we have a lot of Regina.”
Source: The Discussion
Extracted from Portal del Campo https://portaldelcampo.cl/Noticias/75642_Coronavirus-golpea-duramente-precios-de-cerezas-y-de-ar%C3%A1ndanos-en-China.html?platform=hootsuite
