An Argentine pome fruit industry leader says it is "incomprehensible" that local importers are buying Chilean fruit while 200 million kilograms (441 million pounds) of apples are rotting on trees at home, newspaper La Mañana Cipoletti reported.

Argentine Chamber of Integrated Fruit Growers (CAFI) executive director Marcelo Loyarte called on importers to take stock of the difficult situation, and how their actions were exacerbating a domestic crisis.

"It is incomprehensible that we have to live with this reality where there are companies importing Chilean fruit while there's the stock that's here in Argentina and the necessity for activity to be able to sell all this stock in the domestic market," he told the publication.

The sector representative urged for a sense of "common sense" from importers in such tough times, and made reference to links between trucking companies and Chilean-owned supermarkets.

"We all know the difficulties that we have at a competitive level, and that Chile could sell for cheaper than what Argentina sells because of issues of exchange rates and cost," he was quoted as saying.

"In the Central Market [of Buenos Aires] there were some trucks, however we know that historically there were some trucks that were purchased by a supermarket chain that is in the region and has links with Chilean companies and is a chain of Chilean supermarkets.

"But in this case in particular, what surprised us and bothered us most was that not only are they traded there but in the Central Market. We hope this does not continue; efforts are being made so that measures are taken, because this is a very bad gesture amidst a situation like this."

Argentina's pome fruit crisis has been driven mostly by a temporary absence in the Brazilian market, which was cut off for three months and has since been reopened. The depreciation of the euro and the drastic fall in the value of the ruble have also hurt the country's apple and pear exports.

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