China sticking to "Zero COVID" policies has led to a trade bottleneck at border gates. More than 300,000 tonnes of ripening dragon fruits are at risk.(Photo tienphong.vn) This statement was made in a forum “Linking production and consumption ofdragon fruits” jointly held by the Ministry of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment (MARD) and other agencies on January 6.
Thuong said bilateral trade between Vietnam and India had risen steadilyin recent years, from 5.1 billion USD in 2016 to 11.2 billion USD in 2021, andis expected to top 13 billion USD this year.
Vietnam’s dragon fruit export to India went up quickly during 2019-2020,reaching over 11,000 tonnes and fetching 9.86 million USD.
However, the fruit’s export in 2020-2021 experienced a drop of 25 percent dueto the pandemic. On top of that, India successfully sold its first batchof dragon fruit to UAE in June 2021, posing a competitive challenge.
Given the situation at hand, the counsellor suggested Vietnamese authoritieshold regular talks with foreign counterparts, as well as forming workinggroups and subcommittees, in order to expand its market reach overseas.
Domestic associations and trade promotion agencies are also recommended tocooperate with diplomatic representatives abroad on trade promotion programmesto help firms improve their competitiveness in international markets.
“The enterprise community is strongly advised to diversify products,participate in trade forums, actively reach out to foreign partners, staycautious during negotiations and pay attention to packaging,” Thuongadded.
At the forum, Vietnamese trade counsellor in Japan Ta Duc Minh said Japanremained one of Vietnam’s leading trade partners and Vietnamese agriculturalproduce are always in high demand in the country.
Japanese firms were thus willing to do business with Vietnamesepartners to import more fresh and processed fruits.
Japan allowed the import of Vietnamese white-fleshed dragon fruit in 2008 andred-fleshed fruit in 2017.
To boost agricultural exports to Japan, the counsellor recommended Vietnam shiftthe focus to highly processed products and pay closer attention to itsproducts’ shelf life to adapt to complex domestic distribution systems inJapan.
“In the future, we would like to work with agencies of MARD to promoteVietnamese fruits on e-commerce trading floors in Japan,” Minh added.
Currently, Vietnam produces around 1.4 million tonnes of dragon fruits a yearand more than 60 percent of this comes in Q3 and Q4. In 2021, Vietnam’sdragon fruit export raked in over 998 million USD.
Nguyen Quoc Thinh, Chairman of the Dragon Fruit Association of Long An province,disclosed that dragon fruits in the province would be harvested up untilLunar New Year with an expected price of 15,000 VND (0.66 USD) per kilo.
These fruits were set to be sold to China, but the pandemic led to theclosure of most border gates and brought a halt to the trade flow.
The association thus urged the authorities to step up promotion to helpVietnamese dragon fruit find customers elsewhere, especially in India, anddevelop domestic market through supermarket chains, to less commercially dependon China.
According to Tran Thanh Nam, deputy minister of MARD, dragon fruit is aVietnamese key export produce with a high competitiveness in internationalmarkets. The fruit has successfully made inroads into fruit-geared countriesincluding Thailand, Indonesia and India.
Even demanding markets like Australia, the European Union and Chile have begunto give carte blanche to the Vietnamese fruit.
However, China continues to position itself as the main importer ofVietnamese dragon fruit.
Meanwhile,China has also been expanding its own dragon fruit cultivation for years,eating into the Vietnamese market share.
To sustain the consumption of the Vietnamese fruit, it is necessary to holdmore trade forums to promote the fruit worldwide and develop the domesticmarket to be less dependent on the trade with China.
In the near future, firms should take advantage of free trade agreements tobring dragon fruit exports to the next level./.
VNA
