Chairman of the People’s Committee of northern Bac Giang province asked relevant authorities to actively examine lychee export markets in a bid to minimise the reliance on China, the province’s traditional market.

Accordingly, the province will promote lychee production in line with current development plans and quality standards to ensure food safety and meet the demand of traditional and new markets.

In addition, by 2015 a 100-hectare lychee cultivation area will comply with the Global Good Agricultural Practices (GlobalGAP), expecting an output of 500-600 tonnes at the Hong Xuan cooperative in Hong Giang commune in Luc Ngan district.

The province expects to have 150 hectares and 170 hectares of lychee cultivation certified as GlobalGAP crops by 2016 and 2017, respectively. It also encourages enterprises to connect with producers in order to expand cultivation areas with a view to exporting to new markets.

It also pledged to expand the total cultivation area to 9,500 hectares with a capacity of 47,000-57,000 tonnes.

Furthermore, Bac Giang’s lychee is registered for protection in the US, Japan, the Republic of Korea (RoK), the EU, Russia, Israel, Singapore and many other countries.

The province is running a number of trade promotion campaigns in potential markets.-VNA