Export prices of Vietnamese fruit are leading in the ASEAN region due to high production cost, which is recognized as one of major reason hindering local fruit industry from further development, according to local exporters.
Dinh Van Huong, deputy director of HCMC Vegetable Export Company (Vegetexco), said that high air-fare, expensive anti-bacterium facilities and a 40 per cent of post-harvest loss are pushing up Vietnamese export fruit prices.
Huong added that local export enterprises have found hard to collect fruit timely for processing because most of the fruit trees are cultivated in a small scale, stressing that it is necessary to sep up fruit co-operatives which will be responsible for quality and quantity of fruit.
“In Thailand, each household grows averaged three hectares of orchard while such an area is often owned by 10 households in Vietnam,” Vo Mai, president of Vietnam Fruit Association said, noting that enterprises can not go to every household to collect fruit.
Realizing importance of fruit cooperatives, the Trade Ministry has recently mapped out a plan in which each province in the Mekong Delta will open one or two enterprises and set up cooperatives with total fruit plantation area of 10-15 ha each.
Accordingly, enterprises will take responsibility in planting, buying, preserving, packaging and shipping fruit to other provinces nationwide and selecting fruit with high quality for exports.
The ministry will at first choose Tien Giang, Vinh Long and Binh Thuan provinces, which are famous for much-wanted pomalo, mango and blue dragon fruits to carry out the plan.
It has recently negotiated with Vietnam Airlines on reducing fare while setting up frozen storages in Lang Son’s Tan Thanh border gate where most of Vietnamese fruit are exported to China.
Vietnam currently has total orchard area of nearly 75,000ha, producing more than six million tons of fruits per year. But only 10 per cent of which meet export standards.
P.V
Vietnamese
