70% of Vietnamese fruits and vegetables are exported to China.

Among the markets importing Vietnamese fruits and vegetables, China is the largest market, accounting for 70% of turnover.

The Center for Industry and Trade Information (Ministry of Industry and Trade) has just updated data showing that Vietnamese fruits and vegetables exported in the past 8 months were mainly to the Chinese market.

China is the largest market for Vietnamese fruit and vegetable exports (Illustration photo: KT)

Specifically, in the first 8 months of 2016, fruit and vegetable exports had a surplus of more than 1 billion USD, surpassing rice to become the spearhead of agricultural exports, with a turnover of 1.57 billion USD, an increase of 21.8% over the same period in 2015. Among the markets importing Vietnamese fruit and vegetables, China is the largest market, accounting for 70%, reaching 1.09 billion USD, an increase of 27.9% over the same period last year. The second largest market in terms of turnover is the Korean market, reaching 59.44 million USD, an increase of 20% over the same period in 2015, accounting for 3.8% of total export turnover. Next, the US market reached 54.76 million USD, accounting for 3.5%, an increase of 35.3% over the same period last year.

In terms of the growth rate of Vietnam's fruit and vegetable exports in the first 8 months of 2016, most markets achieved growth in turnover compared to the same period last year; some markets had high growth rates such as: UK increased by 39%; to UAE increased by 37.1%; Malaysia increased by 23.3%;... However, exports decreased sharply in some markets such as: Cambodia decreased by 193.7%; Hong Kong decreased by 105%; to Kuwait decreased by 146.6%;...

Although fruit and vegetable exports from now until the end of the year are considered relatively positive, according to the Vietnam Fruit and Vegetable Association, the export of this item still faces some difficulties from the markets. For example, in the Indian market, exports face many risks because they have to accept the payment method of post-payment. In addition, Indian customers pay very slowly (in installments) not immediately after receiving the goods, leading to a situation where when customers cannot consume the goods, businesses cannot collect the money.

Regarding the very large market for Vietnamese fruits and vegetables, China, recently some Chinese enterprises have received inaccurate information, so they have required Vietnamese fruit and vegetable exporting enterprises to provide documents confirming that the enterprise is on the list registered by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to send to China in order to clear customs. This has caused many worries for enterprises.

In fact, the above registration regulation has been in place since July 2009, but has not yet been implemented and there has been no request for additional inspection.

According to the Vietnam Fruit and Vegetable Association, for the fruit and vegetable industry in general, the recent surge in fruit and vegetable imports in some markets has also caused certain difficulties.

According to VOV