The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock announced that the representatives of the banana export and producer sectors had met in Guayaquil last Friday and reached an agreement to maintain the minimum support price of a box of bananas at $6.25 in 2022.
The members discussed their opinions at the meeting. William Ramon, from the producer sector, said that they should consider production costs and proposed increasing the value of the banana box to $7.19.
According to Ramon and other representatives, they had only signed an attendance record and not an agreement. He also said they would present a clarifying document to the authorities. "We had separate positions, at no time did we discuss them nor did we reach an agreement," Ramon said.
Recently, the National Banana Federation of Ecuador (Fenabe) clarified that there was no agreement and asked the Government to rectify its announcement. "There seems to be a misunderstanding. They think the producing sector approved the proposal of the exporting sector," they stated.
The document of the agreement released by the Ministry details the position of the export sector. Ivan Wong, one of the representatives, said that increasing the price would lead to more informality because there are companies that don't comply with the established price.
Representative Leonardo Viteri also requested maintaining the price.
Meanwhile, Julio Cruz, a representative of the producers, proposed holding new meetings between both sectors to find solutions. He also proposed eliminating fruit test purchases or, if authorized, respecting official prices.
Other members of the Banana Price Agreement Board presented their reasons to set the minimum support price at $ 6.25.
According to Pedro Alava, the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, the price of bananas hasn't increased due to competition against the Central American countries to place the fruit in Europe.
Source: eluniverso.com