Spanish fruit and vegetable exporters have a competitive disadvantage in terms of transport costs when compared to other Community producers because they are at a greater distance from said markets.
The cost of transporting a kilo of fruit and vegetables from Spain to Germany is 0.18 cents/kilo, according to Fepex estimates. Meanwhile, exporting the same volume from the Netherlands, Spain's main competitor in the market Community, costs 0.04 euro, which means that Spanish exporters pay 14 cents more than the Dutch.
Transporting fruit from Spain to the UK also costs 0.18 cents/kilo, while transporting it from the Netherlands costs 0.08 cents/kilo, i.e. 10 cents less.
The cost of transporting a kilo of fruits and vegetables from Spain to France is 0.10 cents/kilo and from the Netherlands to France is 0.05 cents/kilo, i.e. 5 cents less.
This competitive disadvantage would be aggravated if Spain implements a toll for the use of its network of high-capacity roads (highways and motorways) starting 2024; a toll that could be extended to all of the country's roads, both national, regional, and local, according to the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan sent to Brussels.
The study of the transport costs for Spanish exports was carried out by the director of Fepex, Jose Maria Pozancos, within the framework of an analysis of the economic challenges of the Spanish sector during a course on Fruit and Vegetable Producer Organizations that was organized and held by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food last week.
Source: fepex.es