Melon and Watermelon Exports Fall
2008 has been registered as one of the worst years for non-traditional agriculture exporting in the country.
The Panamanian agroexporters have begun to close the melon and watermelon season with a strong drop.
Preliminary results of the Union of Non-Traditional Agroexporters of Panama (Gantrap) maintain that in the 2008-2009 season they succeeded in exporting 2,500 containers of melon and watermelon, 2,100 containers less than were transported in the 2007-2008 season.  This represents a shrinkage of 45.6% of activity.
But for the agroexporters, the effort that they made to not let die this activity was worth it.
Edwin Perez, president of Gantrap, indicated that this season’s planting was made with the producers’ own financing and the credit that was given by some commercializers.
“The banks didn’t work this year with agroexporters.  That was the principal problem that caused the activity to fall, and not the world crisis” said Perez.
Good international prices for melon and watermelon also permitted the investments to have a good economic return this year.  According to Gantrap, the Central American countries cut down their production this year due to fear of the crisis.
This year there wasn’t an overly large offering in the market and the price of melon maintained itself above eight dollars per case.  Now the Panamanian exporters hope to arrive in the 2009-2010 season with the problem of financing resolved, but in the government, this topic doesn’t have much priority.
Gantrap even denounced the government for failing to pay the Euro-bono, a figure that the government created to compensate commercial errors that led Panama to lose custom duty preferences in the European Union.  “They haven’t even paid us the  Certificados de Abono Tributario, now even less the Euro-bono”, said Perez while presenting a preliminary report on the activity.