A trade agreement between Ecuador and China began this year, and that could mean exports for Ecuadorian bananas begin to the Asian country. We spoke with José Antonio Hidalgo, executive director of the Association of Banana Exporters of Ecuador (AEBE) and coordinator of the Ecuadorian Banana Cluster.

The trade agreement, signed last year, went to the Constitutional Court where it was ratified and is now being discussed at the National Assembly.

Hidalgo emphasized that "if everything goes well, I believe that by mid-year, we could already be feeling tariff reductions and the opportunities that we will have when the agreement is made official. Currently, we have a 10% tariff, and we see the relationship with China in different instances in the short, medium, and long term."

Opportunities for Ecuadorian bananas

The executive director of AEBE pointed out that signing the agreement is not only good in terms of tariffs.

"The opportunities we see are connecting us with platforms like Alibaba which are focused on boosting domestic consumption with foreign products," says Hidalgo.

He adds, "We also see an opportunity since production figures in Asia are declining and our banana with the growing conditions it has, regarding microclimates and soil, has a longer duration in storage. So it is a product of excellent quality, which will be better positioned while having greater visibility in all these platforms and in all these ecosystems that we are trying to position it in."

Currently, on average, fruit consumption in China is at 60 kilos per capita, 60% of which corresponds to imported fruit.

Challenges

Hidalgo referred to the challenges faced by the sector to conquer the Chinese market because it "is a distant destination, but the advantage of the Ecuadorian banana is that it can withstand long journeys, remaining in transit longer than any other banana in the world. 

Another challenge is that the industry's strategy should focus on e-commerce, since in China 52.1% of sales are by this means.

"For us, it is an opportunity and we hope that the different businessmen also see this opportunity, to consolidate long-term relations," says Hidalgo.