Cherries, Walmex, and Safe Cities

Welcome to Latinometrics. We bring you Latin American insights and trends through concise, thought-provoking data visualizations.

Karla Berman joins us today to talk about safe cities in LatAm and some of the economic impact. She’s an investor, SoftBank’s Operating Leader in Mexico, a board member at Endeavor, and a member of Harvard’s Latin America Advisory Board.

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Today's charts:

1. Who’s buying all the cherries from Chile?

2. An unbelievable drop in homicide rates has taken place in major cities

3. The biggest retail chains in Latin America and the story of Walmex

Make sure you check out the comment of the week at the bottom!

Agriculture 🍒

Chile is Now a Top 3 Producer of Cherries

Over the last decade, Chile has risen to become the world's third-largest producer of cherries, only behind Turkey and the United States.

What has caused this production increase? In short: demand from China. Nowadays, China buys around 91% of all cherry exports from Chile.

Chile's cherry harvest happens just before the Chinese new year; therefore, cherries have become a popular gift in China, culturally considered a symbol of prosperity. The fruit is marketed as something close to luxury and packed in elegant 5 kg boxes in the Chinese market.

Furthermore, two things have also facilitated such prosperity in the Chilean cherry industry: strong government support and a recent influx of labor. In 2005, the government established a free trade agreement with China (now its largest export partner, ahead of the US), eliminating trade barriers between the two countries. Wisely, they've also set rigorous production standards, ensuring exported cherries are of the highest quality.

On the other hand, cherry plantations require a large amount of field labor, which the country has found in the roughly 700K immigrants that arrived in Chile between 2015 and 2017. These immigrants, mainly from Haiti and Venezuela, have driven labor costs down in the industry and allowed it to keep growing quickly.

Although presented with pandemic-related challenges lately, the cherry industry is quickly becoming a crucial component of Chile's trade. It diversifies exports from a historical overreliance on copper, which accounts for roughly half of its exports.

Crime ☠ 📉