January first this year, a total of 606 products that Chile exports to South Korea and Japan no longer have to pay tariffs due to the free trade agreements signed with these Asian countries.The Bureau of International Economic Relations (Direcon) of the Chilean Foreign Ministry reported this and explained that the most important products exempt from the tariffs were fresh grapes, raisins, apricots, cherries, peaches, raspberries, kiwis, blueberries, dried apples and plums, and apple juice, among others.
Starting this month, 95% of the imports from Chile to Korea will be tariff-free. 215 products exported to Japan are also tariff-free. These include cherries, apricots, peaches, plums, kiwis, frozen strawberries and dried apples.
"This is great news for the fruit industry because it improves our position in Asia, a market in which we've been gaining ground in recent years," said the president of Fedefruta, Cristián Allendes, who added that the growth of the fruit sector in Asian markets has averaged about 10% per year. Thus, he estimated, the tariff exemption would help "this trend to continue until they become one of Chile's fruit exports main destinations."
In the 2012-2013 season, Chile exported about 7.4 million boxes of fresh fruit to Korea and 3 million boxes to Japan, which represents 3.7% of the national fruit-export industry.
Up to last year, the main Chilean fruit exports to these markets were table grapes, kiwis, limes, oranges and blueberries.
