From the fourth quarter of 2022 until now, the fruit and vegetable industry has witnessed strong export growth from many new markets, promising to reach $4 billion in 2023.

A few quarters ago, when durian in Phuoc Long Town (Binh Phuoc) was granted a planting area code for official export to China, a series of durian farms in this locality quickly applied digital technology synchronously, automation in farming for export. Many farms also invest in drones, automatic spraying vehicles, self-propelled lawn mowers … that cost billions of dong for gardening.

According to Dr. Nguyen Anh Phong, Information Center (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development), in 2022, major markets such as China, the United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand … received about 20 more types of fruits and vegetables officially exported from Vietnam. These are favorable conditions to boost Vietnam’s fruit and vegetable exports in the coming years.

Dang Phuc Nguyen, General Secretary of the Vietnam Fruit and Vegetable Association, also said that 2023 could be a “boom” year for the fruit and vegetable industry. “Currently, the market is gradually opening up, reducing the control of the COVID-19 epidemic, creating better conditions for import and export. In addition, gradually the difficulties in logistics and transportation are removed, the freight rates are getting lower and cheaper, creating more favorable conditions for Vietnam’s fruit and vegetable exports”, said Mr. Nguyen.

Recently, with a sharp decrease in exports to the Chinese market, the fruit and vegetable industry has proven its enduring vitality when the epidemic situation is less stressful and has grown strongly in many other markets such as the US (up 14 .4% in 11 months of 2022), South Korea (up 14.1%), Thailand (up 19.7%), Japan (up 7.3%), Netherlands (up 47.2%), Australia (up 5.5%)…

According to Mr. Nguyen Quang Hieu, Head of the Department of International Cooperation and Communication (Plant Protection Department, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development), to open the market for an agricultural product, it currently takes Vietnam only 3-5 years while in the past it needed dozens of years. “Despite identifying China as the main market of Vietnam’s fruit export industry, we have diversified export markets for agricultural products. For example, we choose Korea as one of our strategic markets, because when we succeed with the Korean market, we will go to half of the Japanese market. In the near future, we will export longan to Japan. To prepare for the longan to export to Japan, we have started trade promotion and prepared procedures from 2016-2020. Besides, it took us 1.5 years to test products that meet Japanese requirements,” said Mr. Hieu.

According to Mr. Dang Phuc Nguyen, new export products will be opened in many markets in 2022, as well as the positive impact from 15 Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) Vietnam has signed and implemented, certainly creating a great impetus for fruit and vegetable exports. “In 2023, export growth will reach about 20% compared to 2022. In 2022, reaching 3.4 billion USD, in 2023, fruit and vegetable exports can reach 4 billion USD”, forecasted Mr. Dang Phuc Nguyen.

Source: Nhip Cau Dau Tu