`More Grim Figures For Global Olive Oil Trade - Olive Oil Times

More Grim Figures For Global Olive Oil Trade

By Julie Butler
May. 8, 2014 15:00 UTC

Olive oil imports are down about nine per­cent on last year in seven major mar­kets out­side Europe – a drop of 22,620 tons, accord­ing to new fig­ures from the International Olive Council.

That means the IOC esti­mate of a world sur­plus of 480,000 tons this sea­son – just updated to reflect higher Spanish pro­duc­tion – could end up much big­ger.

In its lat­est mar­ket newslet­ter, the IOC reports Japan is the only key mar­ket where olive oil and olive pomace oil imports increased in the first five months of the sea­son – last October to this February. Imports are up 2 per­cent there on the same period last year.

But it’s bad news in the world’s top two non-EU mar­kets – the United States and Brazil – with falls of 6 and 14 per­cent respec­tively. And in China, the biggest mar­ket after Japan, trade has plunged 31 per­cent, while for Australia it was 16 per­cent, Canada 10 per­cent and Russia 3 per­cent.

Concern about this decrease in imports is also fuelled by the fact that 1 per­cent growth was fore­cast for these seven coun­tries in the pro­vi­sional IOC bal­ances for 2013/14. If the over­all drop of 9 per­cent holds, the cur­rent fig­ures in the 2013/14 bal­ance would have to be adjusted to lower world imports by 53, 900 tons,” the IOC said.

Record pro­duc­tion in Spain

Between last October 2013 and the end of March, the first six months of the 2013/14 sea­son, Spain pro­duced more than 1.75 mil­lion tons of olive oil, accord­ing to its Food Information and Control Agency (AICA).

This record ton­nage is 188 per­cent more than the sea­son before and higher than the ini­tial esti­mates. As a result, world pro­duc­tion is assessed at around 3,150 000 tons and end­ing stocks are expected to be more than 480,000 tons as long as the other pro­vi­sional fig­ures in the world bal­ance do not change,” the IOC said.

Table olive sales down except in U.S.

In the first five months of the 2013/14 table olive crop year, sales were up by 6 per­cent on last year in the U.S., but down 14 per­cent in Russia, 11 per­cent in Brazil, 7 per­cent in Canada and 3 per­cent in Australia.


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