Chile saw a huge increase in its China-bound kiwifruit exports during 2016, with shipments rising 111% to 24,385 metric tons (MT) from January through November. 

The previous year had seen a more moderate increase from 7,283MT in 2014 to 11,576MT, according to figures from China Customs Information.

The data showed the largest kiwifruit supplier to the market, New Zealand, had seen a year-on-year increase of 31% to 86,264MT in its kiwifruit exports.

Figures for 2015 and 2014 were 65,828MT and 39,481MT respectively.

Meanwhile, Italy boosted its China-bound exports by 16% to 17,409MT, while Greek shipments rose 18% to 1,942MT.

France was the only one of the top five suppliers to China to see a reduction in its exports over last year, with the figure falling 17% to 981MT.

In total, imported kiwifruit volumes to China rose 40% over the period to 120,982MT.

New Zealand's kiwifruit exports to Japan came in fractionally lower than the amount shipped to China, rising 13% year-on-year to 86,081MT, according to Japan's Ministry of Finance.

At the start of the season, New Zealand's single-desk kiwifruit marketer Zespri said China may well become its biggest market during 2016.

Chilean kiwifruit volumes to Japan rose by the same number of percentage points to 2,066MT, while U.S. exports to the market rose six-fold to 2,067MT.

Overall, imported kiwifruit volumes to Japan rose 15% over the period to 90,209MT.

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