MILAN, Sep 18 (Class Editori) – Sicilian farmers increase initiatives to increase exports of their products to China and plan the next steps: a campaign to promote the Sicilian blood orange on the Chinese market in time for the local New Year at the end of January; a Group of Chinese journalists for the project "Le vie della Zagara" of the Distretto degli agrumi di Sicilia; a second one for the inspectors for the expansion of export shares and another mission to contact with Chinese buyers.
China was at the center of a meeting of the Maas (Sicilian agri-food market) in Catania which was attended by companies accredited to export to China, Barbera International, Oranfrizer, Paim Fruit, OP Esperidio, OP Rosaria, Coop La Normanna, promoted by the Distretto Agrumi di Sicilia, the Sicilian Red Orange Protection IGP Consortium, the Department of Agriculture of the Sicily Region, with the presence of Italia Ortofrutta.
By October, Sicily should draw the executive project of the promotional plan to propose to the ICE, drawn up by all the subjects involved "to start a systemic action under the IGP Arancia Rossa di Sicilia brand, which can provide us with a model that can be used on all international markets", as suggested by the director of the Regional Department for Agriculture, Pietro Miosi.
With the regional councilor for agriculture approval, Edy Bandiera, who spoke at the meeting. "Cohesion is fundamental and the regional government is willing to support in the best possible way this process of opening up the Chinese market, which we also want to expand to other citrus fruit productions," the councilor said.
"To be competitive on foreign markets, we need entrepreneurship and cohesion. The opportunity that ICE offers to the supply chain of the Red Orange of Sicily IGP, must be fully exploited and within the time established by the agreed timetable," stressed Giovanni Selvaggi, president of the Consortium for the Protection of the Red Orange of Sicilia IGP, "today's meeting marks the beginning of an even closer collaboration and, we hope even more profitable, between Consorzio Arancia di Sicilia IGP, Distretto Produttivo Agrumi di Sicilia, the Sicilian Region and entrepreneurs in the sector, all aware that a joint promotion action of our fruit can lead to great results, for visibility and turnover".
"Distretto Agrumi di Sicilia has worked hard to open up the Chinese market to our citrus fruits, pushing changes to the Italy-China protocol on transport modes and, ultimately, the need for a effective communication campaign on the Chinese market," added the president, Federica Argentati, "we insisted on this point and thanks to the commitment of the Ministry of Economic Development we managed to involve the ICE, also proposing an incoming action of journalists to be conducted in our territories to let the Chinese media tell the reality of our citrus fruits".
"To this end, the experience of the Le Vie della Zagara project is a successful model, which can also be extended to other citrus fruit areas, which we proposed in the past to ICE, as a fact accepted with the proposal document sent in July by the Ministry of Economic Development that we mean to realize again for an activity to be planned during the next citrus campaign," continued Argentati, "it is clear, finally, that the communication campaign on the Chinese market will have to enhance Sicilian citrus fruits with a quality brand that can only be that of the IGP Red Orange of Sicily, supported by the Distretto Agrumi di Sicilia one. For this we ask the collaboration of the companies, which in the marketing phase can then also use their commercial brands".
For Vincenzo Falconi, director of Italia Ortofrutta, "on the one hand, companies must do a minimum of common factor on quality, price, image, control on arrival by creating an 'Italian system' that can be an important business card; on the other hand, it is necessary to make the red orange more known: therefore communication, fairs, incoming must be coordinated together and shared. Distretto Agrumi di Sicilia, Consorzio IGP, the Region and Italia Ortofrutta will take on the responsibility to summarize the above, return the shared document to the companies and send the proposal to ICE by early October". (All rights reserved)
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