The southern region will focus on expanding the growing of 12 fruit trees in a bid to gain wealth from fruit cultivation.

Accordingly, dragon fruit, mango, rambutan, durian, star apple, grapefruit, longan, banana, pineapple, orange, custard-apple and mandarin will be developed on a total land area of 257,000 hectares in the region by 2020.

By the set year, the fruits harvested from the region are expected to meet food safety standards, half of which will be labelled with the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP).

Local farmers are expected to earn 150 million VND per hectare a year.

The plan has been approved by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).-VNA