With a wide variety of crops and a visionary eye, Peru's Lambayeque takes the sixth spot out of 24 regions for the country's agricultural exports and accounts for over 7% of national shipments.

In conversation with www.freshfruitportal.com, the region's foreign trade coordinator Paola Corvacho explained that although Lambayeque currently found itself in 16th place for overall exports, it hoped to soon become one of Peru's top 10 exporters.

For 2013, the region has its eye on 11th or 12th place.

"We are trying to look at those products that have export potential from the region. One of those is watermelons, which had a lot of relevance last year," Corvacho said.

An obstacle for the region is that it does not have its own port. Despite its location on the northern coast, Corvacho explained that the cost of building a port would be very high. Such an investment is in the works, however, to expedite the trade process.

"Right now, we depend on the port in Piura, which has become a sort of ally for us," he said.

Lambayeque exporters work primarily with the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, which has recently had problems. The European economic crisis has forced the region to push its business to expand.

"We know they are under an economic crisis and because of that, we are looking at other markets to diversify our products elsewhere," Corvacho said.

The trade coordinator said focus had also been placed on Asian markets.

Potential export market stars

Corvacho explained that mangoes have become a well-positioned product, growing 250% on the Dutch market over the last few years.

Fresh grapes, organic bananas and passion fruit juice have also experienced export success.

Corvacho added that the products with the most potential are pomegranates, passion fruit, soursops, tangelos and watermelon.

In the case of pomegranates, Corvacho said a lot of produce goes to Russia, a country that has increased its fresh fruit demand over recent years.

"The company Cerro Prieto made all of its shipments to Russia in 2012. For this type of product, we try to diversify markets. Since Russia is part of the World Trade Organization, we have a lot of tariff advantages, especially now that there's demand for fresh fruit," he said.

Watermelon also saw great success in 2012. According to Corvacho, the fruit went mainly to the Netherlands and England, reaching 160 tons (MT).

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