The Association of Banana Exporters of Ecuador (AEBE) released data on the numbers of boxes sent to the markets. Between January, February and March, 96.03 million boxes were exported. In those months of last year, there were 90.58 million, a growth of 6.01%.
José Antonio Hidalgo, Executive Director of the AEBE, explains that, however, this increase may be due to market prices, which were very good and opportunities. Russia’s war against Ukraine had an impact from the end of February 2022. Therefore, this growth rate may only be a sign of first-quarter recovery compared to 2022, he says.
In 2022, exports were affected by the Russian invasion, logistics, the national strike and the appreciation of the dollar. The sum of these factors caused the drop in exports. It was a reduction of 23.89 million boxes in that period, according to figures from the Central Bank.
In 2023 there have been ups and downs. January is a particular month, because the fruit comes out that there were better temperatures in 2022. The variation rate of exports was 8.25% compared to January 2022 and in February it was 0.8%, despite the bad weather conditions.
Source: time.news