The idea of exporting the fruit was promoted by the trade office of the Vietnamese Embassy in France for over a year in a bid to find more export opportunities for Vietnamese lychees overseas so that Vietnam will not be dependent on the Chinese market.
The export of the first batch of Vietnamese lychees to the European country followed an initiative to diversify export markets for the fruit after the trade office learned that Vietnamese lychee farmers faced difficulties when they could not sell their produce to China last year, said Commercial Counselor Nguyen Canh Cuong.
The initiative was launched after Cuong discovered that the fruit, mostly imported from South Africa and Madagascar, is popular among French people.
The main barriers for the Vietnamese fruit are the requirements for plant quarantine and costly shipment, for which the fruit must be treated with sulfur, a technology still strange to Vietnamese exporters, Cuong said.
If the first batch of Vietnamese lychees successfully sells in Paris, 7.5 more metric tons will be shipped there from now until the end of the lychee season in Vietnam, which is in July this year, he added.
