Illustrative photo (Source: JICA) According to the Vietnam Fruitand Vegetables Association, 2016 was a successful year for the sector as itearned about 2.5 billion USD in exports, growth of 30 percent from 2015,surpassing that of strong agricultural products such as rice, peppercorn andrubber.
The sector expects an exportturnover of 3 billion USD this year.
Good news also came for dragonfruit as it was officially accepted into the Australian market.
Experts predict that exports offruit and vegetables, especially fruit, will surge by three or four times inthe near future.
However, they also pointed toweaknesses in the sector, including market exploitation, as the volume of fruitand vegetables shipped to demanding markets such as Australia, France and theUS remains low.
In the first two years of exportingto France, only several tens of tonnes of Vietnamese lychee was sold, while a smallamount of mango was shipped to Australia.
Meanwhile, Vietnamese fruit andvegetable exports largely depended on China, as about 70 percent of products wereshipped to China in 2016, compared to 65 percent in 2015 and 30 percent in2014.
Duong Phuong Thao, deputy head ofthe Department of Import and Export under the Ministry of Industry and Trade,said that China pledged to create optimal conditions for Vietnamese products inthe market.
However, China will tightenimport activities and strengthen the fight against smuggling and thesupervision of product quality, she said.
Thao stressed that to achievesustainable growth in the sector, quality must be improved, with increasinginvestment in post-harvest storage and processing and building trademarks to attractmore consumers.-VNA
VNA
