Brazilian orange juice exports exceeded R$2 billion for the first time in history, during the 2006/2007 orange season that ended on June 30. Processing industry sales and foreign sales totaled US$2.017 billion, 64.78% above the 2005/1006 orange crop of US$1.224 billion, according to the Foreign Trade Division (Secex) of the Ministry of Development, Industry and Trade data. Before that, the largest export sales of the beverage registered by Secex were US$1.460 billion in the 1989/1990 season.

During the first half of 2007 alone, orange juice exports totaled US$1.19 billion and were 85.24% higher than the US$643.38 million of the first half of 2006. The exported volume rose 23.38 percent, to 1.024 billion tons from 830.42 million tons in comparison to the same period.

The soaring orange juice export sales for the 2006/2007 season occurred basically because of the increase in product prices, mainly concentrated and frozen orange juice, since the export volume increased only 11.78 percent, when compared to the last two seasons. According to Secex, the total volume of orange juice reached 1.966 tons in 2006/2007 against 1.759 million tons in 2005/2006. The volume is the total of concentrated and frozen orange juice and other non-fermented juice. If we consider only the concentrated and frozen orange juice (FCOJ), industry sales expanded 70.75% in comparison with the previous crop, and jumped to R$1.434 billion from US$840.15 million. The FCOJ exported volume increased 1.7% between 2005/2006 and 2006/2007, to 1,018 million from 1,001 million tons.

Furthermore, Secex data point to the foreign consumption increase in non-frozen orange juice consumption. The exported volume of that type of orange juice increased 33.74% during the two most recent crop seasons, to 671.596 tons in 2006/2007 from 502.165 thousand tons in 2005/2006. Non-frozen orange juice sales jumped to US$187,4 million from US$133,9 million, a 67.62 percent high during the same period. Other non-fermented orange juice exports totaled US$395.18 million in 2006/2007, a 67.62 percent increase against the US$235.75 million obtained in 2005/2006. The exported volume of that type of orange juice expanded 8.14% when compared to the same period, to 275.94 thousand tons from 255.16 thousand tons.

Source: Página Rural