AMSTERDAM: Four Nicaraguan companies producing mango, cocoa, dried fruits and organic chia, which conducted a trade mission to the Netherlands, managed to secure import agreements worth 4.98 million dollars.
At the mission, sponsored by the Association of Exporters and Producers of Nicaragua (APEN), the deal was closed for the first shipment of goods, valued at $ 456,250, which will start in December.
Mangosa, Burke Agro, La Campesina and CAC Trading are the companies which, according to Azucena Castillo, general manager of APEN, met the standards for these negotiations with their Dutch counterparts.
The visit of Nicaraguan companies was preceded by several stages, explained Castillo. Initially, a market study was carried out in the Netherlands to identify companies that could be interested in importing Nicaraguan products.
Subsequently, an agenda of commercial meetings was made, stated the general manager of APEN. The mission aimed to become familiar on-site with the Dutch marketing chain; thus, entrepreneurs held activities such as visits to supermarkets and convenience stores, as well as 27 business meetings.
As regards the export process itself, Castillo said that there was also a visit to the port of Rotterdam to find out more about how the goods would be shipped to this European country.
William Burke, general manager of Agro Burke, a company that closed a deal for the shipment of 1,500 tonnes of pineapple juice for next month, said that in order to meet this order it will be necessary to increase the current production and accelerate the processing to European standards.
Among the first orders, there are also twenty tonnes of organic chia from CAC Trading; as well as 87.5 tonnes of cocoa beans and ten tonnes of cocoa paste from La Campesina.
Fulfilling these orders will have a social impact on the communities where the goods are produced, said Luis Campollo, marketing director at Mangosa, a company that will ship twenty containers of fresh mangoes.
