ASPROCAN requests that 100% of the transportation costs for the 2023 banana be covered

Last January, before Pedro Sánchez’s executive declined the possibility of articulating budgets for this year, the plan was established between the central government, the Canary Islands government and the sector to finally update the aid coverage to comply with the Economic and Fiscal Regime of the Canary Islands. This meant an expansion of the help line, going from the 20 million euros budgeted for 2022 expenses to 30 million in 2023. With this extension, the provisions of article 7 of the Law that regulates the Regime were complied with. Economic and Fiscal of the Canary Islands in relation to “financing a compensation system that allows 100% of the effective cost of transporting goods between the Islands and the Peninsula to be covered.” Finally, in the call published last Friday in the Official State Gazette, this update of compensation is not foreseen. A decision that seriously harms the sector given the increases in transportation costs together with the sharp reduction in income last year.

From ASPROCAN, however, it is understood that, if there is a will, there are still technical and legal ways to avoid this serious damage, which is why the central and Canarian administrations are urged to find a solution to the current scenario and seek alternative measures. “The publication of the call without considering the update of the conditions of the aid warns us of an intention contrary to what was planned,” says Domingo Martín Ortega, president of ASPROCAN, who insists that “the activation of these alternative measures, and the consequent “The expansion of compensation will allow the banana sector to cushion the increase in expenses in banana cultivation, in a particularly complicated scenario, marked by the collapse of prices and overproduction in 2023.”

Every day, one million kilos of Canary Island bananas are sent to the Peninsula for ripening and marketing. Until 2021, the aid only covered 30% of the expenses derived from transport, but the negotiation between the Canary Islands and the central Government, both from the Socialist Party at the time, together with the Canarian Coalition political group in Congress, managed to expand the coverage. of 2022 expenses up to 55%, still far from recognition of the REF. The objective set by all of them was to expand aid in 2023 to meet 100% of transport expenses, this being one of the points on the Canary Islands agenda agreed bilaterally between Moncloa and the Canary Coalition.

In 2023, the Canary Islands banana trade had an economic impact of more than 500 million euros in the Islands. In the Canary archipelago there are 7,500 Canary Islands banana producers and the sector employs 12,000 people directly full-time with a gross wage bill that already exceeds 200 million euros.

The Association of Banana Producer Organizations of the Canary Islands urges immediate and collaborative action to cover 100% of transportation costs as recognized by law, and even more so when it represents inalienable support for the continuity of the sector. which is the engine of