FRUIT EXPORT IS EXPECTED TO REACH THE TARGET OF 3.6 BILLION USD BY 2020

On March 15^th, in Tan An city, Long An Province, a conference to promote the sustainable development of fruit trees in the southern provinces was organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in coordination with the People's Committee of Long An Province.

Chairing the conference were Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh; and Mr. Pham Van Canh, Vice Chairman of Long An Provincial People's Committee; with the participation of leaders of Dong Nai, Soc Trang and Hau Giang provinces; representatives of departments, institutes, schools and DARDs of 20 southern provinces where many fruit trees were mainly planted; agricultural and fruit processing enterprises, cooperatives and top farmers in Long An province ...

In recent years, fruit production in the whole country in general and in the southern provinces in particular has received increasingly investments and developed quite comprehensively, continuously grown in terms of output value and quality to meet the demand for domestic consumption and export.

According to the report, currently the plantation area of ​​fruit trees in the south is estimated at 596,331ha (accounting for 60% of the total area of ​​fruit trees nationwide). Total fruit production reached more than 6.6 million tons (accounting for about 67% of the national fruit production, increasing over 61% compared to 2010) with 14 fruits with large plantation area, over 10,000 ha / type. In which, the top is mango with 80,000 ha, bananas with 78,000 ha, dragon fruit with 53,000 ha, 44,000 ha of orange, 44,000 ha of pomelo, 35,000 ha of litchi, durian of 47,000 ha, pineapple of 33,000 ha, and lemon of 27,000 ha ... The main fruit planation in Mekong Delta area accounts for about 58% of the fruit area in the South; while the Southeast region accounts for 17%; South Central Coast 15% and the Central Highlands 10%.

In 2018, fruit and vegetable export value reached 3.8 billion USD, an increase of 47.3% compared to 2017; in which estimated products from fruits accounted for over 80% of the total value. The main export fruits are dragon fruits (accounting for 1.1 billion USD); Next are bananas, rambutan, longan, litchi, mango, mangosteen, durian. In 2018, Vietnamese vegetables and fruits are exported to 13 major markets in the world, of which China is the largest market, accounting for 73.1% of the market share, the rest are difficult markets like the US and Korea, Japan, Netherlands, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia ...

However, according to the Department of Crop Production, the area of ​​fruit trees is still scattered and unfocused, so it is very difficult for infrastructure investment, production association and product quality control. There are only a few types of fruits such as dragon fruit, bananas, citrus trees that are forming concentrated production areas and specializing in large-scale cultivation. Therefore, fruit production in our country in general and in the South in particular is facing many challenges, need to be solved for sustainable development.

Currently, there are about 145 industrial fruit processing establishments with an annual capacity of over 800,000 tons of products. However, the amount of fruits inputs for processing is still limited in terms of types and yields. Particularly in the South, there are 71 processing facilities, but most processing factories are in a state of "hunger" of raw materials, the actual capacity is only about 50% of the design capacity.

Most processing factories have not focused on investment in developing material areas while the linkage of production, preservation and processing is still limited. The processed products are simple in the form of crude, low quality, high risk of food safety. Moreover, the capacity to invest and innovate the processing technology of these factories is also very slow, not meeting the increasing requirements of customers, especially for fastidious markets like the US, Japan and EU. ...

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in order to achieve the target set by 2020, the value of export turnover would reach over US $ 3.6 billion, the reorganization of production is an urgent issue; focusing on market factors, especially big markets. Each province and city should select a number of major fruit trees, build a concentrated production area, invest in the development of these products according to the value chain, in association with infrastructure investment and new rural development projects in the area. Its is essential to enhance the awareness of farmers and mobilizing farmers to cooperate with each other to organize cooperatives, cooperative groups, build concentrated cultivation areas, especially new cooperatives with the role of production linkage to ensure traceability, connecting businesses to purchase and consume products.