PETALING JAYA: Following Malaysia’s inaugural export of homegrown frozen whole durian to China on June 17, its ambassador Bai Tian tried his hand at making his first purchase of the thorny fruit at an online-offline supermarket in Beijing Sunday (July 14).
In a post on the China Embassy’s Facebook page, Bai was said to have paid a field visit to Alibaba’s FreshHema mall in the capital city and successfully bought a frozen Musang King.
In one of the pictures, Bai was seen scanning the frozen whole fruit that was wrapped with white paper and a transparent plastic bag in front of a payment kiosk.
Another picture showed that the fruit, weighing about 1.8kg came from Melaka and was exported by Exofruits Industry Sdn Bhd.
On May 30, China’s General Administration of Customs approved the import of frozen whole durian from Malaysia, which is highly sought after by the Chinese.
Before this, only the pulp, paste and processed products of Malaysian durians could be imported into the country.
Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Minister Datuk Salahuddin Ayub said during the inaugural export ceremony that Malaysia was expected to export 1,000 tonnes of frozen whole durian to China every month.
Last year, the country’s total durian export to China was valued at RM9.44mil in 235.62 tonnes.
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