In spite of the fact that Vietnam has fulfilled the necessary procedures to enter new markets, such as Australia and Taiwan, uptake of Vietnamese products is still very slow. Hoang Trung, deputy director of the Plant Protection Agency, an arm of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), noted that Australia in particular is difficult to please and currently, the country is only accepting litchi exports.
Vietnam has also fulfilled the necessary procedures to request that Australia accept mango and dragon fruit exports. All the technical issues relating to mango exports have been settled. But Australian agencies will first send staff to Vietnam to inspect establishments.
Vietnam’s dragon fruit, longan and rambutan have received a license to enter the US market.
But star apple and mango, the other specialties of Vietnam, still cannot, even though Vietnam and the US finished 8 years of negotiations on the procedures for plant quarantine.
It is still unclear why the US does not allow Vietnam to export the two products to the market.
It is also difficult to penetrate the Taiwanese market. After Taiwan stopped importing Vietnam’s dragon fruit eight years ago, the Plant Protection Agency conducted negotiations with the appropriate Taiwanese agencies to resume exports.
It has satisfied all the requirements set by Taiwan. However, Vietnam’s dragon fruit still cannot come back to the market.
Trung said, in the past, Vietnam exported about 20,000 tons of dragon fruit a year to Taiwan.
A report from the Vietnam Vegetable and Fruit Association (Vinafruit) showed that in 2015, Vietnam exported $1.85 billion worth of products, an increase of 24 percent over 2014. China remains Vietnam’s largest export market.
The report pointed out that the fruit export volume to China soared in 2015: with a turnover of $1.1 billion, it accounted for 2/3 of total export revenue instead of 1/3 as in the years before.
As such, Vietnam could export $400 million more in 2015 thanks to the high demand from China.
