According to Luis Miguel Fernández, manager of Coexphal, the Association of Fruit and Vegetable Producers of Almería, the supply of Andalusian fruit and vegetables to Europe is proceeding normally. "There are some admissible delays in the arrival to the United Kingdom, but our products get there in good time and condition."
Coexphal ships 400 trucks loaded with fruits and vegetables a day, 300 of which are headed to EU countries, where 98% of the volume arrives. This translates into 10 million Euro per day.
However, Fernández complains that shipping companies "have increased their prices by 10% on average since the crisis started, which has resulted in the profitability being reduced. Another factor contributing to this is the fact that many of those trucks used to return to Spain loaded with industrial material, but they are now returning empty in some cases."
Andalusia is a leader in the export of Spanish fruits and vegetables. Two out of every five Euro generated by the sector's sales nationwide correspond to this region, which last January reached 692 million in turnover, according to the latest data provided by Extenda, the Andalusian Agency for Foreign Promotion. The province of Almería accounts for 51% of the sector's exports in Andalusia.
Source: sevilla.abc.es