The Chinese fruit juice export market is dominated by the apple juice industry. The country’s capacity to produce apple juice concentrate (AJC) far outstrips demand and it has taken a long time for the industry to find a balance. Production of AJC in China is estimated at around 550 000 tonnes per year and the main export market is the USA.  

The moderate climate of the growing regions in China coupled with the variety of apples that are suitable for this climate means that China produces low acid or sweet apple concentrate. Apple growing regions further south or north, such as Argentina and Poland are able to produce higher acid supplies, which often commands higher prices.  

There has been talk of China emerging as a global supplier of orange concentrate in the past, but so far, this has not materialised.  

It must also be pointed out that domestic uptake of juice in China is increasing every year.  

EXPORTS 

Table 1. Apple juice concentrate (AJC). With imports averaging 50% of the world total over the past five years, the USA is by far the biggest consumer AJC exported by China. In fact the USA imports by volume total more than the other nine countries featured in this table combined.  Russia and Japan are a distant second and third in the table with around 20% of the USA’s total with Russia showing consistent consumption volumes for the period 2012 to 2016 and Japan recording a 21% drop for the same period. Exports to South Africa standing at 37597 tonnes in 2016 have increased markedly in the last two years (2014 to 2015) even improving on the volumes reported in 2013 of 32750 tonnes. Canada, Australia and Saudi Arabia have been consistent consumers over the past three years (2014 to 2016) with Germany and Turkey showing notable fluctuations over the same period. Chinese exports of AJC during the period recorded in the table have declined by approximately 13% with the countries listed importing 91% of these exports in 2016. 

IMPORTS 

Not-from-concentrate (NFC) imports 

Table 3.  China imports of fresh orange juice (NFC). Cyprus has been the largest exporter of fresh orange juice to China in recent years supplying over 40% of the countries imports in 2016 alone. In 2016 Cyprus reported record exports to China practically double the volumes supplied in 2015. Year on year 2016 versus 2015, all countries in this table showed an increase in exports to China with the exception of Australia who were down 15%. Notable increases include the United Kingdom (UK) which has shown a major uplift in volume shipped to China of 310% for the period. Spain, as would be expected, has been the second largest supplier for the last three years providing 20%, 12% and 11% of the total world exports or fresh orange juice to China in 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively. The countries listed in the table provided 89% of China’s imports during 2016. China’s consumption of imported fresh orange juice has increased by 46% in 2016 against 2015 and a massive 385% up on 2012, that’s 9911 tonnes up from 2042 tonnes.  

Table 4.  China imports of fresh apple juice (NFC). As with fresh orange juice reported in table 3, Cyprus by far the biggest exporter of fresh apple juice to the Chinese market with a 46% share of the world’s exports to China. The Mediterranean producer’s exports have increased substantially year on year from just 206 tonnes in 2012 to 1584 tonnes in 2015 with a further jump of 54% in 2016 to 2443 tonnes. China’s imports of fresh apple juice from the UK also increased by a significant 94% in 2016 up by 499 tonnes against the 2015 figure of 96 tonnes. Greece and Spain continue to grow their exports into this market with increases of 94% and 79% respectively – 2016 versus 2015. China’s Imports of fresh apple juice from countries worldwide has been steadily increasing with 2016 volumes up 458% against 2012 and up 18% against 2015. The leading exporters to China listed in table 4 constitute 83% of the worlds trade with China.  

Table 5.  China imports of fresh pineapple juice (NFC).  In a very similar pattern to the trade in exports of fresh orange and apple juice to China, Cyprus is the country with the largest volumes of exports of fresh pineapple juice to China during the last five years, with an especially notable increase of 65% in 2016 against 2015.The combined volumes of the remaining nine countries listed here barely make up 38% of the Cypriot total of 2496 tonnes leaving Cyprus by far the biggest trader with China in fresh pineapple juice. The other most consistent exporter to China over the past five years has been Thailand in third place to the UK’s second who have entered the market from a very low base to record volumes of 251 tonnes of exports in 2015, up 249% on the previous year. Similarly, Costa Rica entered the market for China’s fresh pineapple juice imports in a big way in 2016 selling 146 tonnes against 29 tonnes the previous year and Italy remained a regular supplier of volumes averaging 124 tonnes over the three years 2014 to 2016. World trade with China has been on the increase from a low base of 605 tonnes in 2012 rising to 2647 tonnes in 2015 stepping up by 33% in 2016 to 2496 tonnes. The leading exporters featured in this table in 2016 were involved in 98% of the worlds trade with China in fresh pineapple juice. 

 Juice concentrate imports  

Table 6. China imports of orange juice concentrate (FCOJ). China imports the vast majority of its orange juice concentrate (FCOJ) from Brazil – 77% in 2016. The only other country that comes close to this is Israel with 19% for the same period. And even than Brazil exports nearly four times the volume to China than Israel. Of the remaining countries that are or have been exporting FCOJ into China in the past five years the Netherlands has remained one of the most consistent averaging 597 tonnes per year. China has ceased or greatly reduced imports of FCOJ from three countries that were at one time supplying reasonable volumes – these being Mexico who reached a peak in 2014 of 3733 tonnes, Costa Rica who peaked at 1969 tonnes in 2013 and the USA. 

Table 7. Imports of pineapple juice concentrate into China.  Thailand supplies 80% of China’s consumption of imported pineapple juice concentrate with 510 tonnes in 2016 and 408 tonnes in 2015. Indonesia was the only other significant player in the market when during the period 2012 to 2014 when they were shipping between 309 tonnes and 1633 tonnes at the high point in 2013. This has subsequently dropped away almost completely to just 22 tonnes in 2016. 100% of the worlds exports to China for pineapple juice concentrate are from the countries listed in table 7. 

Source: Customs trade data