Costa Rica's exports to Chile have been steadily rising in recent years with key products including pinapples, plants, foliage and tropical fruit pulp, but the Central American country has a new opportunity in its sights.

Costa Rican Foreign Trade Promoter (Procomer) Southern Cone director Marcial Chaverri told www.freshfruitportal.com that rambutans were approved for export to Chile last year, but the decision missed the season window by a week.

"We expect that 2014 will be the first year that we bring rambutans, starting in late July-August and lasting for three months, although we don't have an estimated amount for these exports," Chaverri said.

"We have big requests from several supermarket chains, so we are very optimistic. We know there is a window of three months more or less, but we will see what happens the first year and hope it will be a great success."

Rambutan is not the only product Costa Rica is aiming to sell in the Andean market, with granadillas and passionfruit already approved, and authorities working on entry for mangoes and papayas

"We are also working with mangoes - which are in a process of study - and at the end of last year we started an analysis of the Perfecta papaya, which is a tropical papaya, not like what is known here in Chile but an improved variety that is uniform in size, and weighs more or less 1kg (2.2lbs) in general," Chaverri said.

"Granadillas and passionfruit are products that are already authoritized for entry in the market, and just need to have exports realized. For that we are working on a plan both with the supermarket chains and exporters to define available volumes and windows that correspond to each of the products, to be able to organize the process of market access.

"With pineapples, we have been performing much as we thought for the growth process, and in effect many taboos and paradigms were broken. Today, pineapples are sold the whole year; before, normally pineapples weren't available in winter."

The promoter expects pineapple exports to Chile will grow by 20% on last year's US$2.5 million.

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www.freshfruitportal.com