The Chilean Fruit Exporters Association (ASOEX) has announced the country's stonefruit exports were down 59% year-on-year for the 2013-14 campaign, mainly as a result of unseasonal frosts that occurred in September.

ASOEX added the season also finished in week 18, which was six weeks earlier than in 2012-13.

The biggest volume drop in exports was for Chile's leading export stonefruit, plums, with a fall of 62% to 44,000 metric tons (MT).

Despite witnessing the sharpest decline, plums still accounted for more than half of the 87,000MT export total recorded for the category, which also includes nectarines, peaches and apricots.

The latter recorded the largest decline in percentage terms, dropping 75% to 311MT.

The second most shipped stonefruit crop was nectarines, which had a 59% decrease in volume to hit 25,000MT, while peaches were the least affected but registered 45% fewer exports at 18,000MT.

The U.S. continued to be the top market for Chilean stonefruit, increasing its share of plum imports to 31% of the total crop while importing 44% of Chile's nectarines, 58% of its peaches and 74% of its apricots.

For the leading product plums, Latin America and the Far East followed the U.S. on the import rankings with rates of 25% and 22$ respectively. For this fruit, Europe dropped from second to fourth position.

The leading three markets were the same for nectarines, with Latin America purchasing 27% of exports and the Far East buyin 15%.

The U.S. and Latin America were the main markets of importance for peaches and apricots, representing 95% and 96% of exports respectively.

From a production standpoint, the Metropolitan and VI (O'Higgins) regions were the leaders with 28% and 55% of stonefruit exports respectively.

An ASOEX release added it was important to note there were fewer export companies registered in the recent season, at 113 compared to 165 in 2012-13.

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