In the past three years exports of nontraditional products have seen an increase of $900 million.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
The head of the ministry of economy, Armando Flores, on the occasion of the presentation of the Accountability Report noted that in the last year alone the increase has been $290 million.
Meanwhile foreign sales of traditional products in the last three years increased by $1 million.
"Central America as a region represents the second largest trading partner and it is a very important destination for exports from small and medium enterprises. Therefore, the value of exports to the countries of the region during 2011 was $2.052 million", reported Elmundo.com.sv.
In the first five months of the year, Honduran exports of non-traditional products totaled $575 million.
According to the Honduran Central Bank's Foreign Trade Report, sales of non-traditional products totaled $1.27 billion in the period.
The general manager of the country's Federation of Agricultural Exporters (FPX) told Laprensa.hn that, "it's good news because it's important for Honduras to export more non-traditional products than coffee and bananas since prices of these fluctuate and non-traditional industries have historically had a buffering effect. However it is hoped that these products can increasingly take a more central role".
Exports of nontraditional products are growing at a faster pace than exports of traditional ones (coffee, banana, cardamom and sugar).
In 2009 total exports summed $7.23 billion. Of them, $5.41 billion corresponded to nontraditional goods (74.9%).
“Data from Banguat shows that in 1980 the country exported $1.52 billion, of which $633 million were traditional goods and $886.4 million were nontraditional ones (58.3%)”, reported Sigloxxi.com.
The non-traditional products sector closed 2008 with $2.9 billion in exports.
According to the article published by the Prensa Libre daily, "...the chemical subsector is in first place with $900 million in exports, followed by food at $275 million, and construction materials at $208 million and then plastics at $138.4 million."
El Salvador's exports broke all records in the January-May period this year, growing at 19.4 percent compared with 2007 and totalling 1.906 billion dollars.
The Central Reserve Bank reports that the increase is due in part to the sale of non-traditional products, the good performance of the maquila sector, and the growth of coffee exports, which have brought in 50 percent more revenues than last year.