During the launch of the Chile Week China 2017, Imagen de Chile presented the Chilean image in China study, a quantitative and qualitative research about the Chinese public opinion and those who make decisions on Chile and its products.

"The idea of these kinds of studies is to have an up-to-date picture of Chiles image in China, how the general population and key leaders perceive our country to detect opportunities, areas of improvement, and to correct things and improve our work in such a distant but important market," said Myriam Gomez, Executive Director of Imagen de Chile.

The study, Gomez said, focused on identifying opportunities and challenges in the tourism, investment, food and wine sectors in certain strategic cities: Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai.

The study was presented during the official launch of Chile Week China 2017, as it is a fundamental platform of promotion of Chiles export offer and the results of the study can improve the actions taken by exporters to promote their products.

"We wanted to have a multiple approach, so we interviewed more than 40 top opinion leaders and stakeholders who had an interest in Latin America. In addition we carried out more than 300 surveys to executives and operators of the tourism area. We also did 30 interviews with Chilean managers in China, and finally we conducted more than 1000 public opinion polls, through the Nature by Index study," she said.

Among the main results: 85% of Chinese investors are interested in investing in Chile; theres been a 6 point increase in the knowledge levels about our country between 2015 and 2016, so now 21% of the people in China are familiar with it.

In addition, the main spontaneous associations with Chile are wine, cherries, blueberries, and mineral resources. These products stand out qualitatively for being attractive, diverse and traceable, as many of them are consumed by a public that seeks Premium products.

According to Myriam Gomez, Executive Director of Imagen de Chile, "the countrys leadership and the image achieved constitute an opportunity to position ourselves as a platform of entry to Latin America. We need to develop a long-term strategy based on a comprehensive understanding of Chinese culture, which will also boost sectors that already have a capital, such as wine and food, delivering a clear and unique message about what we are. Thats why the public-private cooperation that we promote is key," she added.

Chiles promotion actions
In a conversation with SimFRUIT, Charif Christian Carvajal, said that the promotional actions carried out in China with ProChile have been key to the positioning, knowledge and preference of consumers for Chilean fruits, such as cherries, blueberries, and table grapes.

"The Cherries From Chile promotion campaign in China is an unprecedented campaign. We have been implementing this campaign for the last 4 years with the support from ProChile. Its budget has gone from 200 thousand dollars to 5 million dollars, which makes it the most important campaign that our country has made for a food and drink in a specific market. Therefore, it is no surprise that one of its achievements is that consumers have a greater knowledge of this Chilean fruit,"said Carvajal.

He also said that in 2016 this campaign had helped "increase the knowledge that Chile is the country of origin of cherries by more than 40%, impacting more than 379 million consumers, and generating sales by about 51.8 millions of dollars."

"The image study of Chile gives concrete examples that the work being done by the fruit sector, represented by the exporters, ASOEX, the Cherries and Blueberries Committees, and ProChile, is having positive results. All of which helps us continue to grow and consolidate our position as the leading fruit supplier in China," he said.