Andalusia's Exports Reach Record €2.5 Billion

The Spanish region Andalusia sur­passed €2.5 bil­lion in olive oil exports in 2016, set­ting a new record. The world’s lead­ing olive oil-pro­duc­ing region exported 75 per­cent of the Spain’s total for the year, accord­ing to data released by the Agencia Andaluza de Promoción Exterior (Extenda).

Andalusia’s exports of €2.534 bil­lion rep­re­sented an increase of 21.2 per­cent from the year before and €300 mil­lion more than that of 2014.

Virgin oil it accounted for 73 per­cent of the exports and the sales for the prod­uct ended at a gen­er­ous €1.85 bil­lion, a 21.4 per­cent increase over 2015.

All of the top ten mar­kets for Spain increased their pur­chases of Andalusian olive oils in 2016:

• Italy bought 30 per­cent of the Andalusian exports with a total value of €761 mil­lion, or 11.2 per­cent more than in 2015;
• In sec­ond place was the United States which imported €367 mil­lion from Andalusia — 60 per­cent more than in 2015 and 14.5 per­cent of the Spanish region’s export total;
• Portugal brought in €266 mil­lion, a 26.6 per­cent increase that accounted for 10 per­cent of the total;
• France took in €226 mil­lion of Andalusian olive oil, a 16.9 per­cent rise (8.9 per­cent of the total);
• The United Kingdom imported €108 mil­lion worth of olive oil from the Spanish region, a 9.3 per­cent increase.
• China was in sixth place with €108 mil­lion (an increase of 11 per­cent) and Japan’s imports totaled €84 mil­lion ( a 2.9 per­cent rise).
• Nearly dou­bling its Andalusian imports, Australia reg­is­tered a total of €63 mil­lion, 85 per­cent over the pre­vi­ous year, and Germany increased its pur­chases by 95 per­cent to €51 mil­lion.

Seville led the region in export sales with a total of €1.219 bil­lion, or 48 per­cent of the Andalusian total, up by one-third from the pre­vi­ous year.

Córdoba was in sec­ond place with €535 mil­lion and accounted for 21.1 per­cent of the mar­ket. Málaga reg­is­tered €349 mil­lion with an increase of 16 per­cent in sales, fol­lowed by Jaén with a €265 mil­lion account­ing for 10.5 per­cent of the total.

Granada exported a value of €144 mil­lion (5.7 per­cent of the total) — 33 per­cent less than in 2015. Almería had 13.4 mil­lion in sales and a slight rise of 1.8 per­cent.

The region of Andalusia alone exported almost €1 bil­lion more in olive oil than all of Italy.

U.S. sales of olive oil from Andalusia tripled from 2010 to 2016 to reach €367 mil­lion last year. Sales to China rose to €108 mil­lion — three times the Italian exports to the grow­ing olive oil mar­ket.

• La Vanguardia


• El Dia