Illustrative image (Photo: VNA) Binh Thuan (VNS/VNA) - The Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry ofAgriculture and Rural Development and Binh Thuan province have implemented manysolutions to promote the consumption of dragon fruit.
They haveorganised events on connecting local enterprises with partners at home andabroad to expand the consumption market for dragon fruit. They have alsoimplemented solutions to speed up the clearance of goods at border gates,including priority in plant quarantine and transport for exported dragon fruit.
In August, BinhThuan’s Department of Industry and Trade coordinated with the Vietnam TradePromotion Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade to hold an onlineconference on Vietnamese dragon fruit with potential export markets in 2021.
At theconference, dragon fruit production and trading enterprises and cooperatives inBinh Thuan connected with Indian partners, as well as businesses in Australia,Japan, China and Europe, opening up opportunities on expanding the exportmarket for dragon fruit in the future.
Earlier thisyear, the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF)officially granted the Protected Geographical Indication certificate to BinhThuan dragon fruit. This is the second agricultural product of Vietnam toreceive the certificate, after Luc Ngan lychee.
Thiscertificate has a great significance to affirm the prestige of Binh Thuandragon fruit and create many new opportunities for exporting this product tokey markets such as Europe, the Republic of Korea and New Zealand.
Binh Thuan’sDepartment of Industry and Trade in September issued a plan to developproduction and expand the consumption market for Binh Thuan dragon fruit.
Accordingly,the plan would help expand the dragon fruit export market, besidesincreasing export volume to traditional export markets and enhancing tradepromotion activities.
At present, BinhThuan mainly consumes fresh dragon fruit, of which 80-85 percent are for exportand about 15-20 percent for the domestic market.
Binh Thuan provincenow encourages farmers to increase product quality in dragon fruit productionbut not expanding production areas for the sustainable development of thisproduct.
According toPhan Van Tan, Deputy Director of the provincial Department of Agriculture andRural Development, VietGAP standards are also applied for sustainabledevelopment of dragon fruit production. That has increased the value of dragonfruit products and met demand of export markets. On the other hand, the use ofpesticides is also minimised, increasing the prestige and quality of Binh Thuandragon fruit products.
By September,the VietGAP-certified area growing dragon fruit has reached 11,500ha, accountingfor more than 30 percent of the area growing dragon fruit in the province.
Besides, BinhThuan province is forming a dragon fruit production region with high technologyin two districts of Ham Thuan Nam and Ham Thuan Bac.
Binh Thuan’sDepartment of Agriculture and Rural Development has also requested theSub-Department of Crop Production and Plant Protection and relevant agencies tostrengthen the management and supervision of the use of planting region codesand codes of dragon fruit packing establishments that have been granted toorganisations and individuals in the province.
It would alsocoordinate with the Market Management Department to strengthen inspection andcontrol of the labelling at dragon fruit packaging facilities in accordance withexisting regulations.
Binh Thuan hasso far proposed the Plant Protection Department to grant codes to 78 dragonfruit growing regions and 268 of dragon fruit packaging facilities in theprovince.
This provincehas 33,750ha growing dragon fruit trees with a total output of 700,000 tonnesper year. China has been one of the key export markets of Binh Thuandragon fruit./.
VNA
