(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. ban on avocados from Mexico “could possibly be resolved today,” Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Friday.
The decision to suspend imports, triggered by a threat made to a U.S. food inspector, has crippled the critical industry in the coastal state of Michoacan. A prolonged ban also threatens to worsen the U.S. inflation crisis by boosting prices of the beloved fruit.
Mexican Interior Minister Adan Augusto Lopez Hernandez told reporters a resolution should be published Friday on restarting exports.
“We hope it will be positive and that from next week we can restart the export process on a daily basis,” Lopez Hernandez said at the president’s daily press conference.
Read More: Mexico’s Avocado Growers Feel the Pain of U.S. Imports Shutdown
The resolution would involve revising and reinforcing the existing security protection agreements between state, federal and export authorities, Lopez said.
Around 20,000 tons of avocados that would normally have been exported are still hanging on trees in Michoacan, one grower estimated. The ban may have cost farmers in the violence-plagued state around $50 million last week.
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