City lends helping hand to farmers, processors in Mekong Delta as lack of exports causes glut

HCM City seeks to increase purchase of dragon fruit from the Mekong Delta. Photo tienphong.vn

HCM CITY — The HCM City Department of Industry and Trade is seeking to promote the consumption of agricultural products from Mekong Delta provinces, where they are piling up due to their inability to export.

Last week the department and more than 60 businesses met with farmers and agricultural processors from the delta to discuss the issue.

Châu Thị Lệ, deputy director of the department’s Long An Province counterpart, said farmers in her province are harvesting around 20,000 tonnes of dragon fruit while 6,000 tonnes are already in enterprises’ cold storage.

So her agency has taken many measures to boost dragon fruit consumption.

According to Nguyễn Quốc Trịnh, chairman of the Dragon Fruit Association of Long An province, the province’s annual output is 400,000 tonnes, and with export to China becoming difficult in recent times, it is necessary to promote domestic consumption.

There are many co-operatives and individuals growing dragon fruit to VietGAP and GlobalGAP standards and ready to meet all quality requirements of distributors in HCM City.

The association also urged authorities to step up promotion to help Vietnamese dragon fruit find customers elsewhere, especially in India, and develop the domestic market through supermarket chains to reduce dependence on China.

A spokesperson for Tiki said the e-commerce platform was promoting the consumption of agricultural products.

Recently the first 10 tonnes of dragon fruit were snapped up within an hour of listing for sale, he said.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade has directed the Domestic Market Department, the Trade Promotion Agency and the Việt Nam E-Commerce and Digital Economy Agency to help businesses and co-operatives adopt e-commerce to sell agricultural products. — VnExpress News