BRASILIA: According to the Ministry of Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC), Rio Grande do Norte exported 60.66 million dollars in the first two months of this year, i.e. 45.25% more than in the first two months of 2016.
Exports were driven by fruit exports, especially of melon and watermelon. The state’s melon exports increased from 9.75 million dollars in the first quarter of 2016 to 26,300,000 dollars in the same period of this year. Rio Grande do Norte, which is the largest producer of fruit in Brazil, has exported 43,700 tons of melons.
Meanwhile, watermelons exports went from 1.8 million in the first two months of 2016 to 6.2 million dollars in the same period of 2017. The volume has also tripled: as they have sold 12,800 tons of this fruit in January and February this year.
The state’s superintendent of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the economist Aldemir Freire, said that this atypical growth for these two months could be motivated by the migration of fruit exporting companies that were based in Ceará to Rio Grande do Norte due to the scarcity of water resources in the neighboring state, as well as to the longer season there was this year, due to the low amount of rainfall that fell in January.
The president of the Brazilian Association of Producers and Exporters of Fruits (Abrafruta), Luiz Roberto Barcelos, who is also the director of the Agricola Famosa company, also attributed the increase in fruit exports to the migration of part of the production of the Ceara and Capixaba companies to Rio Grande do Norte.
The companies moved to Rio Grande do Norte because of two factors: the state has a better supply of water resources and a greater agility in environmental licensing, which, according to him, results in an increase in acreage, job creation, and exports.
Barcel also said there had been an increase in productivity due to the use of new technologies and the business strategy of exporting a greater share of the production to offset the decline in Brazil’s domestic consumption.
Additionally, he said, the lower exchange rate is reflected in the companies’ profitability. “A low dollar adversely affects companies, which have had lower profit margins, even though they are exporting more,” he said. If the descent continues, the variation in the exchange rate may influence exports in 2017.
