Vietnamese fruits gradually conquer the world market

As a tropical country, especially in the southwestern region, a fertile land with year-round fruit gardens, Vietnam possesses many types of fruit that few other countries have.

Recently, the good news from the US market opening up to two more types of imported fruits from Vietnam, longan and lychee, along with plans to continue bringing each specialty such as star apple, dragon fruit, rambutan, lychee and mango to penetrate demanding markets such as the US, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan... is an opportunity for Vietnamese fruits to conquer the world market.

Dragon fruit export packaging.

According to Mr. Nguyen Xuan Hong, Director of the Plant Protection Department, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Vietnam has strengths in exporting fruits that not every country has. For example, Vietnamese dragon fruit is the best in the world, mangoes and lychees are very delicious and many countries want to import fruits from Vietnam.

Mr. Nguyen Xuan Hong said that the US importing more lychees and longans from Vietnam in addition to dragon fruit and rambutan is a move that opens up opportunities for Vietnamese fruits to penetrate deeper into the US as well as other demanding markets, and at the same time is an opportunity for Vietnamese fruit and vegetable exporting enterprises to gradually reduce their dependence on the Chinese market and ensure sustainable growth.

However, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Hong also warned that exporting fruits to demanding markets such as the EU, Japan, the US... requires meeting food safety requirements, and quarantine plants using measures such as irradiation and hot steam treatment. At the same time, it is necessary to organize production and plan into large specialized areas with a traceability system such as growing area codes, packaging facility codes, processing plant codes...

Looking back at the recent export situation of dragon fruit and rambutan to the US, Japan and South Korea, Mr. Nguyen Huu Dat, Director of the Post-Import Plant Quarantine Center 2, said that since 2008, dragon fruit has been exported to the US market and since then the export volume has continuously increased, from 100 tons (in 2008) to 1,000 tons in the first six months of 2014.

Despite strong competition from Thailand and Mexico, Vietnamese rambutan has the advantage of producing off-season products, so since being exported to the US (November 2011) the rambutan output has always been stable. The amount of dragon fruit exported to Japan and South Korea reached about 4,900 tons, of which 1,000 tons were exported in the first six months of 2014.

“Businesses need to make good use of products that are naturally exported to the US, such as coconuts; increase banana exports to the US and Japan because bananas only require harvesting when the fruit is still green, without irradiation or hot steam treatment,” Mr. Nguyen Huu Dat suggested.

According to Mr. Nguyen Huu Dat, Vietnam has the potential to produce and export many fresh fruits, so it is necessary to have a proactive strategy to consume products and unify export management. There are programs to promote Vietnamese fruits domestically and internationally to develop more markets; especially promotional programs to expand demanding markets in both quantity and quality.

For example, the program to bring Vietnamese fruits to American supermarkets (currently Vietnamese fruits are only sold in Asian supermarkets) or to build a chain of wholesale and retail stores of Vietnamese fruits in major cities in the US owned by Vietnamese enterprises; the program to bring dragon fruit to the remaining three main islands of Japan, because currently Vietnamese dragon fruit is only sold in one of the four main islands of Japan.

Once the market is opened, the problem remains how to organize production to meet the requirements of the importing country.

According to Mr. Nguyen Tri Ngoc, former Director of the Department of Crop Production, the most difficult thing for Vietnam today is the small and scattered scale of production organization. Although there are some large and concentrated commodity production areas, the capacity of enterprises is limited. When enterprises are limited and scattered, it makes it difficult to ensure quality and stabilize the market.

In addition, post-harvest preservation technology is the weakest link in the value chain of goods production. Typically, lychees, without a preservation process to ensure quality according to requirements, will find it very difficult to penetrate the US market.

According to the Plant Protection Department, although the quantity of spice vegetables exported to the EU is very small compared to other fruit and vegetable products, negotiating and opening a product for export to the EU is extremely difficult.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in the first nine months, fruit and vegetable exports reached over 1.1 billion USD, an increase of 39% over the same period in 2013, especially the fruit and vegetable industry had a trade surplus of 708 million USD.

Among the 10 main fruit and vegetable export markets of Vietnam, China is still the leading market, accounting for 28.6% of the market share, followed by Japan, South Korea, and the US, but with very small market shares of 4.74%, 3.76%, and 3.44%, respectively.

It is expected that by the end of 2014 or 2015, Vietnam will continue to export star apples and mangoes to the US; red-fleshed dragon fruit and mangoes to Japan; dragon fruit to Taiwan; rambutan to New Zealand; and dragon fruit, lychees, and mangoes to Australia.

According to Vietnam+