Creating breakthroughs for export of vegetables and fruits

It was forecasted that vegetable and fruit export value in 2018 would have a growth rate of about 10% compared to the previous year, much lower than the figure of 42.4% in 2017. Promoting deep processing would help raise prices value of those products.

As reported, the export value of vegetables and fruits in November 2018 was estimated at US$ 283 million, bringing the value of vegetables and fruits export in 11 months of 2018 to US$ 3.5 billion, up 11.6% over the same period of 2017. Export growth has been steady, bringing in billions of dollars, however, looking at the structure of exported vegetables and fruits, there are many things for further consideration, i.e. Viet Nam still mainly exports raw or semi-processed vegetables, fruits, accounting for more than 90% of the total exports.

Mr. Nguyen Quoc Toan - Acting Director of Agro-Trade said: Viet Nam's agricultural processing technology only reaches the average level of the world. The coefficient of equipment renovation in recent years was 7% / year, only 1/3 - 1/2 of the minimum level of many other countries. In particular, for the vegetable and fruit industry, the national production output is over 25 million tons / year but currently there are only 150 industrial-scale processing establishments with a total designed capacity of 1 million tons of products / year.

The characteristics of agricultural products are harvested in certain seasons, if they are kept pushing to the market in a large amount, that will be very difficult for full consumption because of limited demand. Therefore, it is necessary to develop processing and preservation to prolong the products’ preservation. Mr. Nguyen Xuan Hong – the Former Director of Plant Protection Department (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) assessed: Currently, Viet Nam has exported a lot of processed vegetables and fruits such as dried mango, passion juice. ... Potential export of processed vegetables and fruits is still very large. If the processing industry is further grown, the figure of US$ 10 billion exported by 2025 is achievable. Currently, Viet Nam has been participating in many free trade agreements (FTAs), according to the experts, this is a very good opportunity to promote export of vegetables and fruits of Viet Nam. However, an important factor facing export of vegetables and fruits is technical barriers. In terms of solutions, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Hong said, if processed, Vietnamese vegetables and fruits will surpass 2 technical barriers that Viet Nam is very weak, such as plant quarantine and food safety.

Mr. Nguyen Xuan Hong further said “Investment in processing will be one of the breakthroughs to enable solving the market problems of Vietnamese agricultural products. To do this, the State must have policies strong enough to attract and create conditions for businesses on land, building specialized areas ...”