On September 17, more than 100 tonnes of fresh durians from five local producers were exported to China via the official channel, marking the debut of many more shipments to this billion-population market in the forthcoming time.

After durians, passion fruits also have ample space for export to China as these two items were approved by China to enter the country by a protocol signed by the two countries in July.

Over a hundred tonnes of Vietnamese durians for the first time entered the Chinese market

Nguyen Vu Thang, COO at Van Xuan Phat Import Export Co., Ltd. – which exported three containers of durians to China, said that it took three years for the firm to prepare for the shipment, with preparations covering material growing areas and packaging standards following stringent requirements from the partner.

After these first three containers, each month, Van Xuan Phat will export 1,000 tonnes of durians to China following contracts placed by the partner.

Rice also eyes rosy prospects for accelerated exports fetching high prices, rooted in Vietnamese rice’s enhanced status in recent years, and partly from India’s recent policy halting broken rice export.

Thanks to the market's positive movement, Vietnam raked in $2.3 million from rice export in the first eight months of this year, up 8.1 per cent on-year.

The price of export rice rose constantly, inching up $20-30 per tonne compared to early September.

Tariff imposition and temporary halting of export of broken rice from India are shaking the worldwide rice export market and prompting rice importers to turn to Vietnam.

Pham Thai Binh, CEO at Trung An High-tech Agriculture JSC, unveiled that many Chinese traders asked to buy broken rice from the company.

“Although we are specialising in exporting fragrant rice, this is quite an inspiring signal to our exporters,” Binh said.

The rice sector aims to surpass the target of exporting 6.3 million tonnes worth $3.3 billion in export value as set early this year.

In the past eight months, the agricultural sector counted more than $36.3 billion in export value, in which agri-forestry and seafood generated $20.66 billion, showing a 15.4 per cent jump on-year. Exports to China, however, fell below expectations.

For instance, for the vegetable and fruit sector, China’s zero-COVID policy caused a nearly 14 per cent reduction in the export value in the first eight months of this year, to just $2.17 billion.

China’s stringent measures for pandemic control have resulted in modest growth of Vietnam’s commodity exports to this market compared to other major markets like the US, EU, South Korea, and ASEAN, which all fetched double-digit growth during this eight-month period.

The latest figures from the General Department of Customs showed that Vietnam’s export value of commodities to China surpassed $35.6 billion in the first eight months, up 6.7 per cent on-year.