Vietnam is accelerating the search for new markets for its fruit and vegetables products.

NDO – Vietnam raked in about US$230 million from fruit and vegetable exports in October, bringing the total for the first ten months of the year to approximately US$2.72 billion, down 12.5% year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

China was the largest importer of Vietnamese fruit and vegetables during the period with a market share of 57.5% and a value of US$1.43 billion, representing a year-on-year decline of 25.9%. In addition, fruit and vegetables shipments to Hong Kong (China) and the Netherlands fell by 2% and 3.7%, respectively.

On the contrary, exports of fruit and vegetables to some fastidious markets, such as the Republic of Korea, Taiwan (China), the United States and Japan, reported increases over the same period last year.

According to the MARD’s Agro-product Processing and Market Development Department, the reduction in fruit and vegetable export values was attributed to the decline in revenues of some items. Specifically, exports of dragon fruit hit more than US$906.7 million between January and October (down 7.2%), bananas US$138.2 million (down 11.7%), lemons US$108.6 million (down 2.4%), and durian US$94.6 million (down 56.2%).

Regarding the domestic market, heavy downpours and flooding have caused vegetable prices to rise in the central region. Similarly, southern localities have also registered increases in the prices of vegetables due to the declined supply from the provinces of Lam Dong and Dak Lak. In contrast, thanks to stable supply, prices of vegetables in the north saw little fluctuation.

It is predicted that during the last months of 2020, the outlook for fruit and vegetable exports will be optimistic thanks to surging import demand from China and the crystallisation of the impact of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement.