China Market Access Only One Step Away for Vietnamese Durians

According to Vietnamese domestic media, Vietnam has concluded phytosanitary negotiations with China for its durians and is now waiting for China’s final approval to let the fruit in.

China is reportedly already the largest overseas market for Vietnamese durians, consuming approximately 70% of Vietnam’s durian production each year. However, owing to the lack of official market access, Vietnamese durians can currently only be brought into China in the form of cross-border trading or by being falsely declared as Thai durians. In early 2019, Chinese authorities began to tighten the management of cross-border trading and asked Vietnam to export its durians through official channels.

Le Thanh Tung, deputy director of Vietnam’s Department of Crop Production, previously said that if not for the COVID-19 pandemic, the negotiations to secure China market access for Vietnamese durians would likely have been finalized in 2020.

According to industry insiders in Vietnam, the major obstacle in obtaining market access to China for Vietnamese durians lies in traceability. All Vietnamese durians destined for the Chinese market are required to originate from growing regions and packaging plants granted codes by Vietnam’s Department of Crop Production, which must also be approved by China’s General Administration of Customs.

Vietnam’s durian production is predominantly centered in areas of mid to high elevation in the southern and central regions of the country. Approximately 50,000–60,000 hectares of the cultivated fruit are for export, mainly in the provinces of Tay Ninh, Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Binh Phuoc, Tien Giang and Dak Lak. The primary harvest season lasts from April to late July, and total annual output is approximately 600,000 metric tons, most of which are the Ri6 and Muangthong cultivars.

Image: Pixabay

This article was translated from Chinese. Read the original article.