Following the implementation of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), yesterday we put the old continent's exports to Canada under the microscope and found a large portion came from citrus while Spain was by far the leading player. Today we look at exports in the opposite direction and find Canada actually has a trade surplus with the European Union overall in fruits, vegetables and nuts, .

According to International Trade Center (ITC) Trade Map statistics, Canada's US$271.5 million in vegetable exports to the EU are worth far more than all its imports of the trading bloc's horticultural foods combined (US$181 million).

However, US$257.9 million of that figure is under the designation "dried leguminous vegetables", which saw an increase of 3% last year.

In vegetables the second-largest category was "manioc, arrowroot, salep, Jerusalem artichokes, sweet potatoes and similar roots and tubers", which saw 115% growth last year to US$9.9 million.

Within the EU the leading markets for Canadian vegetable products are the U.K. (US$69.8 million), Spain (US$53 million), Italy (US$41.8 million), France (US$24.6 million), the Netherlands (US$19.9 million), Greece (US$15.3 million) and Germany (US$10.1 million).

In fruit Canada exported US$60 million to the EU last year, representing around 10% of its shipments worldwide. This compares to the US$101 million in fruit exports the bloc sent to Canada in 2016.

Germany was the top EU market for Canadian fruit exports at a level of US$24 million last year, followed by Belgium (US$9.1 million), France (US$7.2 million), the U.K. (US$5.9 million), the Netherlands (US$5.8 million) and Poland (US$3.7 million).

As in vegetables, the leading fruit product category also involved processing with a trade value of US$56 million for 'fruits and nuts; uncooked or cooked by steaming or boiling in water, frozen or not containing added sugar or other sweetening matter".

The next in line was stonefruit at US$2 million, followed by berries at US$848,000.

Another key trend noticed was a 44% decline in fruit and nut exports from Canada to the EU between 2012 and 2016.

Most of this fall was from declines in the leading category of processed vegetables, but stonefruit were also a quarter of what they were four years prior, berries were down by a third, while pome fruit exports were almost a fifth of what they were previously. 

Clearly Canada has a lot of room to grow - and recover - when it comes to exports of fresh fruit and vegetables to the European Union.

Photo: Pixabay

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