Negotiations between the Office for Development and Research for Plant Protection of the Thai Department of Agriculture and the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Food and Environment are currently ongoing with the aim of opening the Thai market to Spanish cherry exports.

From 1 to 9 July, inspectors from the Office for Development and Research for Plant Protection of the Thai Department of Agriculture visited cherry farms in Aragon and Extremadura as part of these ongoing negotiations.

The visit of inspectors to farms is one of the requirements that third countries usually include in the phytosanitary negotiation processes for the opening of their markets, in order to verify compliance with the phytosanitary requirements established in the Export Protocols.

The Protocol for the authorization of cherry exports to Thailand started to be negotiated following a request from the sector, transferred to the corresponding administrations during the meetings of the Fruit and Vegetable Working Group, created in the framework of the Internationalization Plan for the Agro-food Sector of the Ministries of Economy and Agriculture.

Both FEPEX and the Cherry Committee associations are actively participating in the negotiation of this export protocol due to the interest shown in the Thai market.

According to data from the Department of Customs and Special Taxes of the Spanish Tax Agency (processed by FEPEX), Spanish cherry exports to third countries in 2016, including European non-EU countries, amounted to 373 tonnes, which is about 1.5% of the total 23,657 tonnes exported.