Fresh fruit and vegetable exports from Spain climbed in both volume and value terms during the first three months of the year, driven by demand from both the EU and third-country markets.
Spanish fresh produce association Fepex noted that export volumes grew 6 per cent in volume to 4.4m tonnes, while increasing 8 per cent in value terms to €4.1bn.
In the vegetable category, exports increased by 6 per cent to 2.1m tonnes in volume and 8 per cent to €2.1bn in value, with positive movement for tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers, but a stagnation in volume and a decline in value for lettuce.
Fruit exports, meanwhile, grew 6 per cent in volume and 8.6 per cent in value, to 2.3m tonnes and €2bn respectively. Citrus was the main export, followed by strawberries, with the latter falling in both volume and value – 15 per cent to 155,382 tonnes and 19 per cent to €291m respectively.
Fepex pointed to strong demand from two distinct market types as the reason for a growth in exports.
'For Fepex, the good performance of exports in the quarter is due in large measure, on one hand, to the positive evolution of consumer demand in major EU markets such as Germany (up 8 per cent) and Italy (up 19 per cent), and on the other, the good performance of third country markets (up 10 per cent).'
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