The Sino-Ecuador banana preferential trade of May 1, 2024 is yet to improve Ecuador’s exports, which have declined by 14%, reports Expresso.
Ecuador shipped 190.98 million boxes of bananas to China in 2023 vis-á-vis 188.99 million boxes in the year ending June 2024.
The world’s biggest banana exporter however is downplaying the decline, citing that long-term tariff reduction analysis could improve export showings.
While this is happening, China still remains the biggest Asian destination of Ecuador’s bananas. In 2023, China received 4% of the total exports and emerged the South American country’s fifth biggest worldwide destination.
Asia as a whole represents 6% of all banana exports by Ecuador and could grow further following the preferential trade. In retrospect, the Ecuadorian Banana Exporters Association (AEBE) had earlier projected that free trade would increase the Asian share to 15%.
The Ecuador Banana Designate Origin Campaign
The current focus however is not just seeing Asia as a continental market but targeting the actual customers there. For instance, Ecuador is now keen on a growing Chinese middle class that loves premium-priced quality bananas.
According to José Antonio Hidalgo, AEBE’s executive director, the objective is to make China a large-scale target market.
Designated origin promotions of the Ecuador banana are already underway and could reach major distribution chains such as Alibaba.
Besides, Hidalgo hopes that coordination between the government and banana companies can entice consumers in China to prefer Ecuadorian produce.
Ultimately, there is still hope given that yearly banana exports grew by 45% in 2023. This improvement that coincided with the May 1, 2023 signing of the preferential trade agreement could recur as free trade matures. Furthermore as the following statistics show, China remains Asia’s biggest driver of Ecuador’s sales and the world’s second largest banana-consuming market.
Sino-Ecuador Banana Statistics
Ecuador and China in 2023 signed a free trade agreement on key agricultural exports such as bananas, which came into effect in 2024. Ecuador, for one, is an Andes mountain range-bordering nation on the Pacific Coast of South America. It is a source of many tropical fruits and a leader in banana exports with a 26.3% world export value share (2022). According to FAOSTAT, banana production in the country reached 6,078,788.71 tonnes in 2022, the highest in the world. This is even as banana acreage expanded in 2022 to 167,544 hectares. In comparison, Ecuador’s trade partner, China, ranks as the second biggest banana-consuming nation.
Does Ecuador produce cooking bananas or just table fruits?
Cooking bananas and plantains make around 14% of the total banana production in Ecuador. In 2022, for instance, the country had 114,526 hectares under cooking bananas and plantains, which produced 857,561.99 tonnes.
How do China’s imports of Ecuador’s bananas compare with other Asian nations?
In the January-November 2023 period, China imported 256,510 tonnes of bananas from Ecuador, the largest by a Far-east nation. Japan came second at 87,247 tonnes for the same period. While this is just a fraction of the 5.9 million tonnes Ecuador exported worldwide in 2023, it is quite significant by consumer base.
Is China a big consumer of bananas?
China, the key export destination of Ecuador’s bananas was the world’s second biggest banana-consuming nation after India in 2021. The same applies to 2019 when the Chinese consumed 10.253 million tonnes of bananas, the second highest globally.