Ecuador’s Ministry of Agriculture has promised banana growers payment for fruit shipped to Libya last July after the country’s banana exporters association threatened a strike last week, local paper El Universal reported.

Quoting Richard Salazar, head of the ministry’s department that deals with banana production, the report said that the payment will be made in the next couple of days and is a result of negotiations between the company responsible for the shipment to Libya, Semquel, and banana growers.

Growers and the government are odds after a government-backed sourcing of Ecuadorian bananas to the Libyan firm at the end of July. According to local paper El Comercio, some 160,000 cartons of bananas were shipped at a fixed rate of US$ 5.40 per carton. However, to date, only US$ 2 per carton has been paid, and a second shipment has not been paid for at all.

Growers will receive US $5.40 per carton,  the report added.

Source: www.freshfruitportal.com