Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno on Thursday said he aimed to bolster trade exchange with China, one of the country’s main trade partners.
“China is a great buyer … it buys a lot of products from us and, certainly, it sells to us also,” Moreno told local media during a visit to the southern Amazonian province of Morona Santiago.
Currently, the two countries enjoy “very dynamic trade exchange, so it is important to reinforce the relationship,” said Moreno.
Shrimp is one of Ecuador’s top exports to China, which imports “more than half of Ecuador’s shrimp output,” noted the president.
China also imports Ecuadorian fruits, such as banana and mango, according to the Ecuadorian-China Chamber of Commerce.
Ecuador’s minister of Production, Foreign Trade, Investment and Fishing, Ivan Ontaneda, who accompanied Moreno, described China’s market as a priority for diversifying exports.
“We have China on our radar, not just now, but for several years,” said Ontaneda.
In the past year, Ecuador’s sanitary control and regulation agency Agrocalidad, has stepped up procedures to introduce new Ecuadorian products to China’s market, including dragon fruit, he said.
Ecuador has been exporting dragon fruit, grown in the province’s Palora region, to Asia and the European Union since 2012, and to the United States since 2017.
Exports of the fruit generated revenue of some 41 million U.S. dollars in 2019, said Ontaneda.
A man visits the Ecuador pavilion during the second China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai, east China, Nov. 6, 2019. (Xinhua/Fan Peishen)
