A worker labels quality checked stamps on bananas at a banana farm in Long An province (Photo: VNA) HCM City (VNS/VNA) - Fruit and vegetable exports which have beengrowing at around 15 percent annually for the past five years are a highlyattractive business activity for enterprises, which are increasingly investingin large and modern processing plants.
Long An province-based Lavifood Joint Stock Company earlier this month put intooperation a 1.78 trillion VND (76.7 million USD) fruit and vegetable processingplant with a capacity of 60,000 tonnes of finished products a year in Tay Ninh province.
Pham Ngo Quoc Thang, the company’s Chairman, said: “To come up with processedproducts of international standards, the factory has boldly invested in mostmodern technologies and machinery from countries such as the US, Germany,Italy, and Japan.”
It is the first factory in Vietnam with a Leed Silver certificate, and thefirst fruit and vegetable processing factory in Vietnam to use high pressureprocessing (HPP) technology that keeps them longer and helps preserve naturalflavours and nutrition.
Thang said the plant would produce frozen fruits, juices, dried fruits,soft-dried fruits, and fruit juice concentrates for export to the US, the EU, theRepublic of Korea, Japan, and Australia.
To ensure supply of raw materials, Lavifood had tied up with farmers and cooperativesin Tay Ninh province who would grow fruits and vegetables based on its needs, given them training in farming techniques and agreedto buy their output at reasonable prices.
The company plans to build 10 modern fruit and vegetable processingplants and tie up with farmers owning 33,000ha of land in the next 10 years.
Vina T&T Import Export Trading Service Co., Ltd last November beganconstruction of its Kim Thanh-Ben Tre fresh coconut processing plant in Ben Treprovince with a total capacity of 25 million fresh coconuts a year.
The 200 billion VND (8.6 million USD) plant is expected to come on stream thisyear, and it would help preserve fresh coconuts for long and make the company’sproducts competitive in the US market, Nguyen Dinh Tung, its general director,said.
More importantly, it would help keep prices steady through the year forfarmers, unlike now when prices rise in the dry season and fall during therainy season, he said.
Last October Nafoods Group JSC and the People’sCommittee of Tay Ninh province signed a memorandum of understanding to groworganic fruit trees on some 10,000ha at a cost of 3 trillion VND (128.6 millionUSD) between 2019 and 2023.
Once it is able to supply at least 150 tonnes of fruit a a day, Nafoods willbuild a plant in the province to process them for exports worth at least 100million USD a year.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, some 16agricultural produce processing plants costing 8.7 trillion VND (374.7 million USD)were under construction or began operating last year.
Le Thanh, director of the Vietnam Institute of Organic AgriculturalEconomics, said the fruit and vegetablesector was very appealing to investors because there was good growth in theglobal market.
“Global fruit and vegetable consumption is increasing by over 15 percent ayear. With increasing concern about health benefits, people are reducingconsumption of meats and eating more fruits and vegetables.”
Vietnam’s varied geographic and climatic conditions enable it to grow a diverserange of fruits and vegetables, giving it great export potential, he added.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural DevelopmentNguyen Xuan Cuong said, “Vietnam’s fruit and vegetable exports at 3.8 billionUSD last year, exceeded rice exports.”
But there is still much room for increasing exports, and investing inlarge-scale processing plants is among the factors that could help the sectorreach the export target of 10 billion USD set for 2025, according to theminister.
The country has 1.6 million hectares under fruits and vegetables, whichyield around 25 million tonnes a year. With 150 processing plants, the countrycan only process one million tonnes a year.
“The setting up of processing plants in the past proved that Vietnameseenterprises have the capability to invest in and manage plants with mostadvanced technologies and large capacities to produce fruit and vegetableproducts that are in high demand in the world market,” he said.
Cuong suggested enterprises should invest more in modernprocessing plants to further penetrate the world market of 7.5 billionpeople.
Investing in processing would increase the added value of vegetables andfruits and boost exports and strengthen Vietnamese agricultural brands in theglobal market, he added.-VNS/VNA
VNA
