The Minister of agriculture, Eduardo Enrique Carles, said that, in parallel to the negotiations of a free trade agreement (FTA) between Panama and China, they had been working on the opening of the Chinese market for more than 26 domestic product lines in the meat, seafood, dairy and fruit categories, as well as prioritizing inspections in Panamanian plants with capacity to export these products.

Enrique Carles said that he had held a bilateral meeting with the Chinese Directorate General of Customs in August, within the framework of the second round of the FTA negotiations, where he personally delivered to its Director the necessary documents for the analysis of Panamanian exports of different products, such as pineapples.

“We also asked China to prioritize, from a list of more than 80 countries, inspections of Panamanian plants with export capacity in these areas,” he said.

Regarding pineapples, Carles said that after evaluating the sanitary questionnaires delivered by Panama, China agreed to send technical inspectors to Panama between October 28 to November 2 of this year, to inspect pineapple packing plants.

Please note that our packhouse, which you’ll see in the video update below, will be inspected as well.