Satisfaction villager tomato sector export increased transport aid.

IT WAS ONE OF THE CLAIMS TO GET OUT OF THE CRISIS.

The tomato producers of the municipality of La Aldea, Gran Canaria, have expressed their satisfaction with the final approval of the new aid regime for the transport of agricultural goods, which will be a relief to the current situation suffered by the sector.

This new aid regime will be applied retroactively from the 1 in January of 2007. The total budget is 178,5 million euros distributed at the rate of 25,5 million euros per year.

Until now, The current aid regime was regulated by the Royal Decree 199/2000, which established a subsidy 50 percent for all products. With the new regime the 50 to the 100 percent of the total cost of transportation to or from the Canary Islands.

The aid will be calculated based on the most economical means of transportation and the most direct route between the place of departure and the destination.. For this purpose, standard costs will be prepared annually for inter-island traffic and for the Canary Islands-Cádiz route., in the case of maritime traffic, and Madrid-Canary Islands, for the air.

The cost of transporting the goods will include freight, the costs of handling merchandise in ports and airports of origin and destination, port and airport taxes applied to goods, the security fees if any and the surcharge for increased fuel costs when applicable.

The sector states that these actions are small doses of oxygen that allow us to “weather the storm”, but the most important obstacle remains in the refinancing of the debt.

In this sense, representatives of the sector believe that steps are being taken, but the achievements have not yet materialized.