How the Guatemalan Exporters Association Supports Trade with
Guatemala’s exports of processed foods and drinks signify revenue of more than $2 billion, a company in ongoing expansion whose most important client is the United States, which gets 70% of its items. Significantly of this accomplishment is because of to the operate of the Guatemalan Exporters Affiliation (AGEXPORT in Spanish). This non-public, non-earnings firm has devoted the past 40 years to marketing and developing non-common exports of Guatemalan products and solutions and companies.
At the Expo ANTAD and Alimentaria México trade reasonable in Guadalajara, Abasto Media spoke with Francisco Menéndez, director of the Board of AGEXPORT, and Julissa Flores, coordinator of the association’s foods and beverage sector. They accompanied a team of small Guatemalan business owners who participated in Expo ANTAD to exhibit and marketplace their merchandise in AGEXPORT’s eye-catching booth under the slogan “Guatemala, outside of the expected.”
“The Guatemalan Exporters Affiliation focuses its attempts on endorsing its a lot more than 1,500 members in 27 export sectors. Our function is to offer the ailments to open intercontinental marketplaces to Guatemalan exporters, with the participation in occasions, the negotiation of no cost trade agreements, the streamlining of selected processes, and the United States is an essential current market for us,” claimed Menendez.
The director of AGEXPORT explained that a person of the terrific lessons realized from the coronavirus pandemic is that “nearshoring” is very essential for marketplaces these as the United States mainly because of the source from a nearby market place. That is why Guatemala can come to be a critical player in this problem of providing the U.S. in the foodstuff sector as well as in the cleansing goods or agri-foodstuff sector.
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Regarding the rising curiosity in the U.S. for Central American food items goods, notably these from Guatemala, Menéndez considers that his country “is heading through a minute of transformation since it is no for a longer time only food stuff for Central Us citizens, which is a large marketplace. Thanks to the ailments of Guatemala in conditions of weather, agriculture, and opportunities, they give us choices to perform with items beyond what can be viewed as Central American foods. We want the nation to be observed as a target for investment decision and possibilities wherever they can come across the items they are wanting for to source their chains.”
To support Guatemalan companies sector their items in the United States, AGEXPORT has a software termed the Route to Internationalization. In a five-step method, they guideline small corporations that were being not ready to export and get ready them for the opening of the marketplace, initial to Central American nations and then to proceed with the options offered by the United States, knowledge the legal system, permits and the competitiveness of the merchandise to have constructive economic results.
For her component, Julissa Flores highlighted that exports to the U.S. ended up at first focused on nostalgic items, thinking of that there are 5.5 million Central Us citizens dwelling in the United States. “However, now we are relocating to other niches, we are relocating to ethnic areas, to personal label, mainly because the field is growing in health foods, in confectionery, it is no for a longer time only the uncooked substance process, but in Guatemala, we have grown in other niches of the sector.”
