With plantations yielding nearly 20,000 tonnes of the fruit per year for Cambodia, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has announced its intention to expand longan exports to new countries.
According to officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, only the provinces of Pailin and Battambang, which share a border with Thailand, now export the fruit.
To prepare for shipping the fruit overseas in greater numbers, the Ministry of Agriculture is now working on certain export requirements, according to Hean Vanhan, the director-general of the General Directorate of Agriculture.
“The General Directorate of Agriculture is now working on meeting sanitary and phytosanitary requirements to ready the product for exportation,” Mr Vanhan said on his personal Facebook page yesterday.
Longan farms occupy 8,816 hectares across the country, located mostly in 10 main provinces, with Battambang and Pailin accounting for nearly 80 percent of total land taken up by longan plantations.
Chan Rithy, the director of Kampot’s agriculture department, welcomed the announcement, saying that focusing on exports can help popularise the fruit among local growers.
Source: khmertimeskh.com
