Tropical Fruit

The world's four most traded tropical fruits are pineapples, mangoes, avocados and papayas. In 1996, imports of these four fresh fruits were worth $2.2 billion(US).

World production of of tropical fruit was valued at $33 billion(US) in 1996/97. Of this value, around $11 billion(US) is traded as exports. In fact, world trade in tropical fruit has grown at above 8 percent each year since 1990.

Other key features of the global tropical fruit market include:

	Total world production of tropical fruit was estimated at around 56 million tons in 1997
	95% of tropical fruit is produced in developing nations, which also tend to consume the majority of their own output.
	Trade in fresh tropical fruit grew by 14% to 1.8 million tons in 1996.
	Trade in processed tropical fruit grew by 1% to 1.4 million tons. This was valued at $1.1 billion(US).
	Major exporters of tropical fruit are Thailand (43% of world export value), Malaysia, Brazil, Indonesia and Ecuador.