Peru 06/09/2021

Peruvian pomegranate exports registered record value in the 2021 campaign

 

Peruvian pomegranate exports in the 2021 campaign, which began in January and ended in June, totaled 38,000 tons. It is an increase of 5.5% compared to the 36,000 tons exported in the previous campaign.

In this season, shipments of fresh Peruvian pomegranate amounted to $80,680,955, which means a growth of 28.2% compared to $62,927,033 achieved in 2020, according to Fernando Cillóniz Benavides, the president of the consulting firm Inform@cción.

Despite the fact that Peruvian pomegranate exports registered a record volume in the 2019 campaign (40,000 tons), the 2021 campaign reached the record in value ($ 80,680,955), compared to $65,821,132 achieved in 2019.

Cillóniz explained that the price of pomegranate this season increased because the early pomegranate variety from Arequipa has higher prices than the late variety from Ica. For this reason, the cultivation of pomegranate is developing in the Arequipa region, and Ica is withdrawing from the cultivation of this fruit.

In 2021, the Netherlands was the main recipient of this fruit (20,662,866 kilos), followed by Russia (6,615,027 kilos), the United Kingdom (2,361,837 kilos), Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, the United States, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Italy, among others.

The main pomegranate producing regions were Ica with 28,950,650 kilos, Arequipa with 6,036,564 kilos, Lima with 3,000,000 kilos, Ayacucho, Lambayeque, among others.

Antonio Bustamante, the general manager of Agroinca, reported that the National Agrarian Health Service (Senasa) is negotiating to open the Chinese market to increase exports of the fruit. They also want to change the treatment of access to the US, because today the US market demands irradiation treatment that is very expensive, according to Bustamante.