Fruit, veggie exports to China up 44%

The foreign trade agency under the Ministry of Industry and Trade says the export of fruits and vegetables is set to rise in the coming time because durian has been allowed to enter China under official quotas since September and banana will follow suit soon.

Vietnamese firms plan to export some 1.3 million tons of durian to China via official channels every year.

China, the biggest importer of Vietnamese fruits and vegetables, spent $948.6 million on bananas from different countries in the first nine months of the year, including $213.3 million worth of the fruit from Vietnam. The export of Vietnamese bananas to China through border trade in the nine-month period saw a year-on-year increase of 49.2%.

However, export of fruits and vegetables to China in the first 10 months experienced a year-on-year decline of 26% to $1.2 billion.

Fruit and vegetable exports to the world market, meanwhile, reached $2.75 billion, down 8% year-on-year, according to the foreign trade agency.

In October alone, Vietnam earned $310 million from exporting fruits and vegetables to the world market, up 23% over September and 28% year-on-year.

Vietnam cultivates bananas on 155,000 hectares and gets an annual yield of some 2.3 million tons. It grows durian on around 85,000 hectares for an annual yield of 670,000 tons, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.