KINGSTON, Jamaica — Jamaica will be exporting one container of bananas per week to Trinidad starting December 21 as part of its export thrust, which was restarted in 2013.

Janet Conie, General Manager of The Banana Board, made the announcement at the Banana Day Observation and Farm Tours held in Portland last Friday.

The Ministry of Industry, Commerce Agriculture & Fisheries in a release today said that since 2013, there has been a steady increase in banana production from over 33,000 tonnes up to 58,701 metric tonnes in 2016.

It added that export of bananas has been on the increase, moving from 78 tonnes in 2013 to 411 tonnes in 2016 with earnings of $47.7 million, following the devastation of the industry in 2012 by Hurricane Sandy.

Through a $4.73 million-euro grant funding from the Government of Jamaica and the European Union, some 1,000 farmers in traditional banana-dependent areas have benefitted from capacity building training and technical advice under the Jamaica Banana Accompanying Measures Programme, which ran from November 2013 and ends this December 2017 and the Banana Export Expansion Programme, which ran from 2015 and will end in January 2018.

Member of Parliament for West Portland, Daryl Vaz, who was speaking on behalf of Portfolio Minister Karl Samuda, commended the work of the Banana Board and the All Island Banana Growers’ Association for their outstanding work in the redevelopment of the banana industry.