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El Salvador’s food manufacturing sector has kept a fast pace in terms of increasing production levels. Food manufacturers took the challenging environment caused by the pandemic as an opportunity to evolve and add new items to their food lines.

This report provides initial analysis and a courtesy translation of El Salvador’s Transitory Law to Combat Price Inflation in Basic Products, published March 11, 2022, with an import duties comparison added for reference.

Despite the social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Salvadorans have increased purchases of specialty food products and continue seeking new flavors and increased variety, demonstrated by the opening of new specialty food stores and new registrations of U.S. products during these unprecedented times.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, FAS El Salvador identified an opportunity to seek market access for U.S. table-eggs. In February 2021, FAS obtained the equivalence needed to allow imports of fresh table-eggs from the United States, and the first shipment arrived in El Salvador on October 20th, 2021.

During 2020, El Salvador imported a little over $632 million of agricultural products, which is a drop of 8 percent compared to 2019.

In El Salvador, there is no legal impediment to the use of biotechnology for food, feed, and processing. However, no GE crops are currently cultivated.

In El Salvador there is no specific food law. However, the Ministry of Health’s (MINSAL) Health Code is used to enforce food safety for all food and beverage products.

This report provides examples for the major export certificates and other documents required by the government of El Salvador for U.S. exports of food and agricultural products.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the fragile nature of the tourism sector in El Salvador, which in 2020 closed with approximately $750 million in income, which is at least $1 million less than projections for foreign tourism and a 10-year set-back, according to some sector’s analysts.

The Salvadoran retail sector has remained strong and stable amidst the pandemic of COVID-19.

El Salvador’s coffee production is expected to reach 519,000 sixty-kg bags in marketing year (MY) 2020/21.

Sugar production in marketing year (MY) 21 is estimated at 815,000 metric tons (MT), while production for MY20 has increased to 809,000 MT