Vietnam’s durian growing areas issued codes by China for export

Vietnamese durian has the advantages of high output and year-round harvest.

HANOI: Vietnam now has 876 durian growing areas and packing facilities issued with codes eligible for export to China by the general administration of customs of China.

This helps create favourable conditions for promoting durian exports to this market in the future.

Vietnamese durian has the advantages of high output and year-round harvest. Another advantage is to have a shorter time to ship durian to China.

In 2023, according to the general department of Customs, Vietnam’s total export value of fruits and vegetables reached US$5.6bil, an increase of 66.7% compared with the previous year.

This export result was due to the sudden increase in durian exports which reached US$2.1bil, compared with US$288mil in the previous year.

Of which, Vietnam’s durian was mainly exported to China with US$2.03bil in value, accounting for 99.4% of the country’s total export value of this product group.

The fruit and vegetable exports in the first two months of this year continued to grow strongly by more than 70% to US$970mil with key products such as fresh coconut, dragon fruit, grapefruit, bananas, lemons, vine, mango and durian. Durian was still the dominant product.

Along with reaching standards from demanding markets such as the United States, Europe and Japan, Vietnamese fruits and vegetables are having many opportunities to accelerate exports.

At present, Vietnam and China are completing procedures to open the market for coconuts and frozen durians.

That is expected to help the export value reach US$6.5bil in 2024.

According to the plant protection department under the Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry, by the beginning of 2024, the durian growing area in the southern provinces reached 62,173ha, 15,000ha higher than that in the same period of last year, the Dau tu (Investment) newspaper reported.

The south central coast and central highlands provinces now have 57,101ha of growing durian, an increase of more than 19,200ha year-on-year.

Meanwhile, the durian market demand can reach US$20bil in China and US$28.6bil in the world by 2025.

This is considered a great opportunity for Vietnamese durians if the domestic durian industry is developed according to the sustainable direction in the future.

To expand the durian export market, growers and businesses need to focus on improving quality, as well as the stages of preservation, preliminary processing, and processing to add value, besides expanding the areas. — Viet Nam News/ANN