The Middle East is an emerging market and one that the Chile Trade Commission has said is key to its export expansion plan, said trade commissioner Carlos Salas at a recent Chilean food and wine tasting event in Dubai.
Last year Chile exported around US $80 million to the UAE, and this year its target is US $130 million. Salas is confident of reaching the target: “This year we are increasing exports by 60%. So far we are doing well. In September we had exported US $100 million, and we still had three months to reach the target,” he said.
“So far we are in the 16th place out of 200 countries in the world for exporting food. We want to be in the top 10. That is our goal for 2015.
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“For that reason the Middle East is a very, very important place to develop. So far it represents 2% or our total exports, and we want to increase it to 5% or more.
“We have chosen Dubai as a hub to develop this market, and have selected Emirates and Saudi as our first two steps. From here we are close to Qatar and all of the GCC.
“Our main sector is fresh fruit, the second is dried fruit, the third is seafood, followed very closely by wines. These four sectors represent 90% of our exports. We think that with these four we can grow very fast.
“We have just opened our country for halal meats and in the next year that could be another sector that develop in an aggressive way. We don’t have a high volume of meat, but it is high quality because in Chile we have green grass,” he went on to explain.
“We have the same climate as New Zealand and Australia. It’s a long country and we have very different landscapes in each part. Australia and New Zealand have a big advantage as they are closer, but they have already reached their trade capacity.
“As we are growing we can be more competitive. We can reach the market with better prices, and the quality will still be high.
“There are only a few countries in the world where food is more than 10% of a country’s GDP. After new Zealand and Belgium, Chile is third in how important exports are to the country.
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