Cherries imported from Chile are put on display at a supermarket in Beijing on November 27, 2021. Photo: VCG

After a 23-day-long ocean voyage, a shipment of about 8,000 tons of cherries from San Antonio, a Chilean port city, arrived at Tianjin Port on Thursday. This marks the first delivery since the launch of a direct shipping route between Chile and Tianjin in early December, according to the Tianjin Municipal Transportation Commission.

After going through procedures such as customs clearance and inspection, the cherries will be distributed to major wholesale markets in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province before being delivered to the dining tables of Chinese consumers.

Four consecutive direct cherry shipping routes are scheduled to arrive at Tianjin Port before the Chinese Spring Festival in late January, with a total of 1,500 containers of cherries to be unloaded, at more than 30,000 tons in weight, the transportation commission said.

The growing cherry trade with China serves as a hallmark of trade between the two nations, with Chile has been the direct beneficiary for maintaining its close link with the massive Chinese market.

During the 2023-24 harvest season, China consumed a total of 377,000 tons of Chilean cherries, accounting for 91 percent of Chile's total cherry exports, according to official media reports.

Cherry trade booms

According to the Chilean Fruit Cherries Committee, Chilean cherry exports in the 2024-25 harvest season are expected to increase by 59 percent compared with the previous season. China will continue to be the main export destination for the cherries. In the last decade, Chilean cherry production has emerged as Chile's leading fruit harvest, with the cultivated area for cherries tripling over the past decade, Foreign Minister of Chile Alberto van Klaveren Stork, told the Global Times in a recent interview, indicating the growing importance of cherry trade to the well-being of the Latin American country.

Discussing future prospects for Chilean cherry exports to China this year, the foreign minister said that "we visualize a new record of the export volume, according to the expectations and projections from the producers and agricultural guilds."

The senior Chilean official is not alone in projecting a strong trade growth of Chilean cherries with China this year. In a recent public statement in December, Claudia Soler, executive director of the Chilean Fruit Cherries Committee, said that in the 2024/25 harvest season, the output of Chilean cherries is expected to reach a new record, with exports forecasted to increase by 50 percent year-on-year, CCTV News reported. With strong demand growth in second- and third-tier cities in China, the market outlook for the year appears very optimistic, Soler said.

Foreign Affairs Minister of Chile Alberto van Klaveren Stork Photo: Courtesy of Alberto van Klaveren Stork

Strategic partners

As the two countries will mark 55 years of their diplomatic relations in 2025, Chile has demonstrated a strong commitment to expanding its economic cooperation with China, one of its key strategic partners.

The Chilean foreign minister concluded his successful visit to China in early December. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, held talks with him in Beijing on December 4, calling on the two sides to advance the comprehensive strategic partnership, Xinhua News Agency reported.

During the meeting, van Klaveren Stork noted that Chile is ready to strengthen high-level and people-to-people exchanges with China, deepen economic cooperation on various fronts, improve connectivity, and promote further progress in bilateral ties, the report said.

China and Chile have been strategic partners since 2012, and their relationship was elevated to that of comprehensive strategic partnership in 2016.

Numbers say a lot about the importance of this partnership. China has been Chile's largest trading partner and largest export market for more than 10 years. According to data released by China's General Administration of Customs, in 2023, the bilateral trade volume reached $62.55 billion.

Commenting on the significance of the trading ties between the two countries, the foreign minister said: "Just look at how Chilean cherries have gained significant prominence at the time of the Chinese New Year… Also, Chilean copper and wine are increasing their presence in China, while Chinese-made cell phones and electric vehicles are increasingly becoming part of Chilean people's daily lives."

The positive trade growth that was highlighted in 2018 was also the year when Chile participated in the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Chile is among the first batch of Latin American countries to join in the initiative.

In the past many years, Chilean presidents, for three consecutive times, joined the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, which shows that deepening BRI cooperation is a cross-partisan consensus in Chile, Xinhua reported.

Chile has actively participated at the presidential level in all three forums held so far, Foreign Minister van Klaveren Stork said, noting that "this forum has allowed us to diversify and strengthen our relationship with China, which currently has been deepened by the comprehensive strategic partnership celebrated between us."

Chile is interested in participating more actively in the BRI projects, including infrastructure, science, telecommunication and more, he said, noting that there is still great potential for partnership in technology transfer and investment in fields such as agriculture, mining and energy, as well as academic collaboration and cultural exchanges.