A global shortage of containers and Covid-related rising shipping rates have driven up production costs for Cambodian mangoes, eroding their competitiveness on the international market.
Heng Sreng, general manager of Boeung Ket Planting and Industrial Co Ltd, stated that his company’s production and export of fresh and dried mangoes went smoothly during the hardest phases of the crisis.
“Our mango-export pursuits have been getting on well as usual, but there’ve been interruptions in shipping traffic and a dearth of containers, coupled with persistently rising transportation fees during the Covid-19 outbreak,” he told.
“Spiralling shipping costs may have increased the cost of production, but my company’s dehydrated [mango] production line remains fully operational,” Sreng said, adding that the firm exported 20-30 per cent more mangoes in January-February year-on-year.