OIL – EXPORTS ( - 13,5%) AND SALES ( - 16%) CRASH

Hard sale decrease in the field of olive oil both in the internal and the foreign markets. These are the data from ASSITOL (the Italian association of oil – industrialists) just at the beginning of the 2008-09 oil campaign – Superior offer and recession are the reasons of this negative trend. If you compare the last relevation term (November 2008 – January 2009) with the same period of the previous campaign, sales have decreased 16%. But this is not only for the extra virgin olive oil. The examined term shows a difficult period even for the olive oil ( - 15,6%) the worst news comes from the export, that has always improved so far – the extra virgin olive oil is losing 13,5% of the exports. Even the so-called conventional oils (the best known marks) are in crisis, with a 12,5% reduction. Instead the olive oil resists the crisis ( + 4,7 ). Luigi Castelnuovo (President of the olive group ASSITOL) affirmed: “these numbers explain the price decline of the raw stuff: the decreasing of orders and sales is even due to an abundant year of production”. The data of the International Oil Council (COI) confirm this trend: the world production of olive oil is increasing, about 2.866,500 tons. This is a 7,6% increase compared to the previous campaign (15-20% in Italy). This is to be added to the oil stock of the past campaign, esteemed by COI in over 630.000 tons.