Citizen protests in France over the tax increase on fuels, a movement known as 'yellow vests', are seriously harming the group of Spanish transporters, including the one from Malaga, and especially also the tropical sector of the province, which has been Saturday suffering significant delays in its shipments to the different countries of the European Union, at the same time as the suspension of orders by customers (mostly large supermarket chains) stopping selling a large amount of merchandise.
The situation, which has been going on for four days and which threatens to continue tomorrow, Thursday, is leading some trading companies to paralyze even the shipment of fruit to the EU until road transport in France is normalized. The commercial director of Frutas Montosa, Carlos Ojeda, has declared that the company, one of the largest distributors of subtropical fruits in the province, is experiencing delays of up to one day in the delivery of the fruit (mango and avocado) to its European customers. "This is forcing us to have to make use of the stock that we had in France", explained Ojeda.
Other firms such as Sigfrido Fruit, also from the Axarquía region, are having worse luck. According to its managing director, Sigfrido Molina, due to the strike of the 'yellow vests' he has suffered the suspension of two trailers in these four days and has several trucks bound for the European Union paralyzed on the road. Frutas Reyes Gutiérrez, which has a subsidiary in France, RG France, has stopped selling these days due to problems transporting between 70 and 80% of the fruit only in French territory.
The luck is that the rains that are being recorded these days in the province have slowed down the harvest of both national mango and avocado, due to the fact that flooding in the farms is preventing a normal harvest of the fruit. However, the problems in road transport due to citizen protests in France also affect imported avocados. Subtropical companies from Malaga are large re-exporters of fruit to the EU and import a large percentage of their turnover.
Although the sector was informed of the protests and was therefore aware of what could happen, many marketers decided not to send their fruit cargo vehicles until Sunday in order to be unloading at their destinations first thing Monday morning. However, queues of up to 15 and 20 kilometers at the border have slowed down transport.
Fuente: diariosur.es
