French food industry in good shape
growth last year, with sales up 2.1 per cent and a 3.8 per cent
improvement in the balance of trade. But the recovery is still
fragile, warns industry association ANIA.
France's food industry continued to grow in 2002 with a 2.1 per cent increase in total sales to €134 billion. More encouraging still was the 3.8 per cent improvement in the balance trade, coming as it did after a 6 per cent decline in the previous year.
French food exports reached €28.3 billion in 2002, up 3.3 per cent from €27.4 billion a year earlier, while imports rose 3.1 per cent to €20.2 billion from €19.6 billion. But despite this improvement in the balance of trade, food industry association ANIA warned that the recovery was still fragile and that the balance of trade was still some way off the all-time record figure set in 1997.
Victor Scherrer, president of ANIA, said that the food industry's performance was good compared to that from other industries. "The food industry is the largest in France in terms of turnover, well ahead of all the others, and is a major contributor to France's positive trade balance as well," he said.
"France is also Europe's leading supplier of food products, ahead of Germany, and is second only to the US on the world stage."
Scherrer highlighted the progress made on relations with the food retail sector as the main achievement of the year. He said that ANIA had completely overhauled the way in which it represented the interests of the industry, preferring dialogue with its retail counterpart, the FCD, to confrontation.
The result, he said, was a joint ANIA-FCD document, published in July 2002, setting out a framework for the two industries to work together and finally reaching an agreement on the thorny issue of the time period permissible before payment for goods supplied must be received.
As for 2003, the first few months have shown yet more growth, with the feared boycott of French goods over the war in Iraq failing to materialise, or at least failing to have any impact on sales.
"2003 is a key year for the food industry both with regard to its relationship with the agricultural sector, implied by the proposed changes to the CAP and the WTO negotiations, and to its ongoing relationship with the retail sector," said Scherrer.
"In the longer term, the food industry has committed to playing its part in promoting sustainable development, with a programme of measures which will be unveiled in the autumn."ANIA groups together the 27 national associations representing the various sectors of the French food industry, as well as 12 regional food and drink organisations.
