After the first 7 months of 2016, fruit export reached 1.27 billion USD and for the first time to be expected to reach 2.5 billion USD/year, which is more than rice export. Many more markets have paid attention to Vietnam fruit and welcome the product.
However, in order to catch this opportunity, we shall really care about growing more fruit fields with enough quality and productivity to meet the needs.
Dong Nai needs to have plans to create specialized areas to conserve and grow Java Rambutan in larger scale to export to foreign markets. Photo: Long Khanh Java Rambutan certified as a geographic indication.
More markets are expected
In July, Central Group Corp cooperated with Ministry of Industry and Trade to hold a “Vietnamese Goods in Thailand Week” fair at Central World – The biggest trade center in Bangkok. The fair introduced the existing Vietnamese product sold in Central Group system in Thailand and the other products from 20 Vietnamese enterprises. Mr. Shudhitham Chirathivat – Representative of Central Group said: “This is a big opportunity for us to introduce Vietnamese products and culture to Thai people and to show Thailand’s true effort in helping Vietnamese enterprises to go further to the international markets via our corporation’s huge distribution network. We are currently representative for 70 Vietnamese providers in agriculture, industry and consumer goods and help the enterprise to have their products exported to over 20 countries.
Established in 2011, Central Group Vietnam Office of Export and Supply is still continuing to support and promote Vietnamese products to international markets. And it is a good new that currently, TCC Corp Thailand has imported the first 100 ton of Vietnamese dragon fruit to BigC supermarket system in Thailand. With the positive feedback from Thai customers, Vietnamese dragon fruit and some other fruit productivity is expected to increase to be able to export more to these Thai markets.
According to some shopkeepers who bought dragon fruits in Dong Nai, in the current years, the province started to receive red dragon fruit order from the European markets. Even though the export capability was not high, more and larger orders are coming; since the European markets are stricter than the others both in the product quality and form, some buyers there are ready to pay the farmer deposits for preorder.
Recently, some other strict markets such as: The U.S, Australia, Japan, and Korea… started welcoming Vietnamese fruits. Not only the dragon fruit but many other fruits such as rambutan, banana, mango, and lychee… also attract the markets. Mr. Nguyen The Bao – Director of Suoi Lon Agriculture, Services, Trading and Tourism Co-operative (Xuan Loc district) said: “Up to now, the Co-operative received an order of thousands of ton of mangoes exported to Japan and Australia for the next crop. We are planning to cooperate with some high productivity mango clubs to expand the farming area to 120ha more to make the total Co-operative area up to 270ha, to somewhat meet the export market demand.
Preparing the fruit field
Lychee Rambutan and Java Rambutan in Long Khang have just been certified as the geographic indications. The first java rambutan trial orders also passed the strict quality test while being imported to France; accordingly, the partner agreed to be the lasting guaranteed consumers with large order to be export to France with only one condition that Dong Nai shall have the specialized field to grow java rambutan only. Unfortunately, in the past few years, hundreds of ha of rambutan including the java rambutan was cut down to instead grow Thailand rambutan which brought more benefit.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Van – a shopkeeper who often buys rambutan in Long Khanh town gave the comparison: “Thailand rambutan is often sold 2, even 3 or 4 times more expensive than the traditional rambutan. From the beginning of the crop, the traditional rambutan price has been unstable while Thailand rambutan price has always been over 20 thousand VND/kg. Thus, many farmers is continuing to cut down the traditional rambutan field to grow Thailand rambutan”. Currently, Thailand rambutan can only be sold domestically; saturated output, glut and price drop in the market shall be hard to be avoided as the number of Thailand rambutan growing areas is increasing dramatically.
Beside of rambutan, Dong Nai also has variety of other fruits with large growing areas and big chance to export such as: mango, banana, grapefruit, dragon fruit… Some enterprises and units are applying The Large Field of Banana Project to export to Japan, Korea; Dong Nai Food Industry Company is cooperating with Korea in the banana grow project to export in Xuan Loc district. Phu Ly Mango Agriculture, Services, Trade and Tourism Co-operative is looking for investors for The Large Field of Mango Project in Vinh Cuu district. It is time Dong Nai province should care more about planning, supporting and encouraging farmers to build specialized areas to grow fruits to meet both productivity and quality demand from the export markets.
Binh Nguyen
