Fresh lychees are always prioritized for export through border gates. Photo: Thai Binh

According to the Bureau of Crop Production (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development), the country's fruit output in the second quarter of 2023 is estimated at over 2.6 million tons. Lychee reaches 330,000 tons;longan reaches110,000 tons. In addition, hundreds of thousands of tons of pineapple, mango, orange, and dragon fruit are also in the harvest.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Vietnam's lychee export turnover reached US$47.4 millionin 2021, reached US$ 27.4 millionin 2022(down 42.3%).For longan, export turnoverreached US$ 23,318 millionin 2021and US$ 13,893 million in 2022(down by 40.4%). In the lychee and longan crop in 2023, export turnoveris expected to grow again because China's main consumption market has removed the zero-Covid policy and reopened.

Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai said that promoting the consumption of agricultural products, especially seasonal agricultural products, was always one of the Ministry of Industry and Trade priorities. With the principle of supporting as soon as possible, catching up with the crops, the Ministry of Industry and Trade highly focused on implementing trade promotion activities to promote agricultural product consumption through various traditional and modern distribution channels in Vietnam and abroad. Over the past time, the system of the Vietnam Trade Office abroad hastimely provided information, guidance and support to localities, industry associations, and business communitiesin trade promotion activities to expand, develop, diversify markets and products, promote export, especially for seasonal agricultural products such as lycheeand longan.

Mr Tran Quang Tan, Director of Bac Giang Department of Industry and Trade, said the province's lychee output reached over 180,000 tonsthis year. Across the province, there were dozens of planting area codes of foreign enterprises. The Bac Giang lychee met VietGAP and GlobalGAP standards.This year, for the export market of Bac Giang lychee, China continued to be identified as a traditional market;potential markets were the United States, EU, Japan, Korea, Australia, Malaysia; UAE, Singapore, Middle East, Thailand, and Hong Kong (China).Besides worrying about the congestion of agricultural products at border gates in the North affecting exports, Mr. Tran Quang Tan also stated that it was still difficult for irradiating products to meet market standards for the US market.

In addition, currently, the cost of transporting lychee by air is high; technology to preserve lychee has not been deployed for shipping by sea; congestion at the Northern border gates still occursevery year; the irradiation of lychee in Hanoi to the US market is in the process of being implemented; capacity in accessing, negotiating and signing cooperation of enterprises and cooperatives is still limit ed; Lychee is still mainly consumed and exported fresh lychee.

For Hai Duong province, Mr Tran Van Hao, Director of Hai Duong Department of Industry and Trade, informed that the province currently had nearly 9,000 hectares of lychee, of which early lychee accounted for about 30%, lychee in the main season accounted for 70%. In 2023, the province's lycheewas expected to be about 61,000 tons;early lycheewas about 31,000 tons; lychee in the main season was about 30,000 tons.Most of Hai Duong's lychees were produced according to safe processes,of which 500 hectares of lychee were certified to meet VietGap and GlobalGAP standardsand are eligible for export to high-end markets.In addition, the whole province of Hai Duong had 203 codes of planting areas for export and 21 codes of packing establishments for export to markets,ofwhich China was 13 codes, and the rest were the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Thailand.

Affirming that China was currently the largest market for lychee and longan export, there was still plenty of room, but a representative of the Hai Duong Department of Industry and Trade was also concerned that congestion at the border would affect lychee exports to this market. Besides, local enterprises faced some difficulties, such as the limit ed capacity to approach, negotiate and sign export products; The difficult economic situation of EU countriesaffected the market's consumption demand for litchi and longan products from Vietnam;there were still many payment risks in some markets...

From the above situation, Bac Giang province proposed to the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the overseas Vietnamese trade office to continue negotiating with relevant authorities and localities of foreign countries to create favourable conditions for lychee export activities. Interested in supporting and promoting Bac Giang lychee consumption on domestic and foreign e-commerce platforms; supporting Bac Giang province to organize activities to promote the consumption of lychee and key agricultural products, especially in domestic and international markets;at the same time, supporting information on the market situation, import policies, procedures, quality certification, food hygiene…in the markets of other countries for lychee and products processed from lychee fruit.

MrNguyen Thanh Huy, in charge of the Vietnam Trade Office in Thailand, said that Vietnamese lychee and longan had similar harvest times to Thailand, but the storage was not good, so the skin was easy to bruise, and the transportation costs were high. In addition, the selling price of Vietnamese lychee in Thailand was nearly US$10/kg, largely due to the high cost of intermediaries and transportation, so besides quality assurance, samples need to reduce costs to increase competitiveness.

Mr Nguyen Huu Quan, Vietnam Trade Office Branch in Nanning (China), said that localities and businesses should actively cooperate with import partners in building and promoting the image of businesses and the main products of our businessand mastering and meeting the requirements of quarantine and quality of the Chinese market. Actively build a direct communication channel with the Trade Officebased on understanding the export needs of local businesses.According to Mr. Quan, the number of trucks carrying agricultural products from Vietnam to the border waslarge,causing pressure at the border gate. Recently, therewasa local congestion situation when the clearance capacity of the border gate reached the limit .Therefore, associations and businesses should update information regularly to classify properly, and grasp quarantine regulations with imported fruits from markets, especially lychee and longan, to improve export efficiency export.

MrTo Ngoc Son, Deputy Director of the Asia-Africa Market Department (Ministry of Industry and Trade), said the congestion at this border gate was now relatively stable. The number of vehicles waiting for customs clearance had begun to decrease compared to May 23. The unit would continue monitoring the clearance situation at the border gates to inform localities promptly. A representative of the Asia-Africa Market Department informed that some border gates in Quang Ninh, Cao Bang and Lao Cai had been allowed by China to import fruit, and businesses could negotiate with partners to change import locationsand avoid the congestion.