Fruit, vegetable sector targets US$ 4.2 billion in export turnover in 2019

The fruit and vegetable sector aims to gross nearly US$ 4.2 billion in export turnover this year, according to the Department of Crop Production under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Illustrative image.

To realize the goal, the sector will expand the fruit area to one million hectare and develop five main fruits in southern localities namely dragon fruit, mango, durian, rambutan, and longan.

The department recommended localities minimize the expansion of area under citrus fruit trees and shift to grow other high yield ones in areas where soil conditions are not suitable for those types of trees.

In order to ensure food safety and origin tracking of products for domestic sales and exports, the cultivation sector has continued guiding farmers to apply advanced standards in production such as Vietnamese Good Agricultural Practice (VietGAP) and Global Good Agricultural Practice (GlobalGAP).

It also seeks to boost processing and expand export markets, gradually reducing dependence on the Chinese market for some fruits like dragon fruit, longan, and mango.

Farmers will be guided to increase the use of new high-quality and disease-free varieties. In 2018, the country had 969,400 hectares of fruit areas, up 48,000 hectares versus 2017.

The fruit-vegetable export turnover reached US$ 3.8 billion in the year, up 8.9 percent against 2017. China was the biggest fruit-vegetable importer of Vietnam with over 73 percent of the market shares.