Apart from exploring new export markets, farmers and authorities are very concerned about investing to increase vegetable and fruit production both in terms of quantity and quality via a full array of sustainable export projects and programs in 2016, following VietGAP and GlobalGAP standards.
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| Vegetable and fruit exports are expected to soar this year |
Apart from exploring new export markets, farmers and authorities are very concerned about investing to increase vegetable and fruit production both in terms of quantity and quality via a full array of sustainable export projects and programs in 2016, following VietGAP and GlobalGAP standards.
According to the Vietnam Vegetable and Fruit Association (VinaFruit), many businesses have signed contracts on vegetable and fruit exports until the end of the first quarter of this year. Exports from the sector soared by 47 percent to US$2.2 billion from 2014-2015 and are expected to grow rapidly in 2016 since the 11 Trans-Pacific Partnership member countries alone import more than US$50 billion worth of vegetables and fruits per year.
Domestic businesses have exported more than 40 varieties of vegetables and fruits to 40 countries worldwide. Of these, the dragon fruit accounted for almost two-thirds of total Vietnamese exports of this kind amounting to almost one million tonnes, followed by water melons 600,000 tonnes, longans 100,000 tonnes and litchis 70,000 tonnes. Vietnam’s top ten export markets are China, Japan, the US, Russia, Chinese Taipei, the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Thailand and Singapore.
Advantages in terms of orders from Vietnam’s export markets have led to a good increase in the price of Vietnamese exported fruits, which has pleased farmers and exporters.
Farmer Vo Thanh Trung from Long An Province said that the current price of dragon fruit has increased by almost two-fold from before the lunar new year bringing him profits of VND4-5,000 per kilo.
Apart from dragon fruit, businesses have concluded numerous contracts on sales of other kinds of fruit such as longans and mangos to hard-to-please markets like the US and Japan.
The Dong Thap-based Chau Thanh Longan Cooperative sold almost 30 tonnes of Edor longans to the US in January.
The Dong Nai-based Suoi Lon Cooperative recently exported 80 tonnes of mangos to Japan. This was the first time Dong Nai Province sold its mangos to Japan for VND17,000 per kilo, VND3,000 more than the normal price.
According to many export vegetable and fruit production and packaging enterprises, they have applied advanced technologies to improve the quality of packaging and post-harvest preservation such as the fruit irradiation and wrapping.
The southern branch of the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance said it has chosen five kinds of fruit for development of new cooperative models for product value chains such as the dragon fruit chain in Long An Province, seedless lemons in Hau Giang Province, green skin pomelos in Ben Tre Province, oranges in Hoa Binh Province and passion fruit in Son La Province.
In addition, the alliance is implementing an EU-funded project to build export capacity of the Dragon Fruit Cooperative. Accordingly, five dragon fruit cooperatives in Long An and 15 others in Binh Thuan will receive technical training, ranging from production skills to access and export produce to the EU./.
(Source:VEN)
