Fruit sector seeks ways to boost exports to China

Despite facing an adverse range of impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, local fruit exports to the Chinese market witnessed robust growth during the first half of the year with more than 2.5 million tonnes, equivalent to 77% of the entirety of last year.

Dragon fruit is one of nine key fruit products that have been officially exported to China

Throughout the reviewed period, the country has had nine types of fruit which have been officially exported to the Chinese market, including mangoe, dragon fruit, banana, longan, lychee, watermelons, rambutan, jackfruit, and mangosteen, with the average export volume of the fresh fruit being between 3.3 million tonnes and 3.5 million tonnes per year.

Most notably, mango products have recorded the largest export volume among the fruit types with more than 468,000 tonnes.

Furthermore, some groups of fruit products have also achieved impressive growth in terms of their export volume, including dragon fruit with 1.2 million tonnes, up 138%, watermelon with 290,000 tonnes, up roughly 132%, and lychees with over 51,000 tonnes, up 44% against the same period from last year.

As a means of promoting fruit exports to the Chinese market, relevant ministries have been closely co-ordinating efforts to meet the requirements set by Chinese importers. This has led to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development issuing 1,703 planting area codes and 1,776 codes for packaging facilities.

Moreover, China has also agreed on a plan aimed at temporarily exporting sweet potatoes and chili peppers to its market.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh underscored the importance of removing challenges relating to customs clearances and quarantine activities as a means of boosting exports to the fastidious market, which makes up 22.6% of the export market share of Vietnamese agro-forestry-fisheries products.