While the farm produce export situation was lackluster in the first five months of 2019, fruit exports gained encouraging achievements with export turnover of $1.8 billion.

TH Group, Nafoods, Doveco and Lavifood, for instance, built six modern facilities with total investment capital of VND5.3 trillion which can put out 150,000 tons of products a year.

 The VND1.5 trillion Tanifood factory in Tay Ninh developed by Lavifood became operational in early 2019. The factory can process fruits in four levels 1/ preliminary treatment, packaging for fresh exports 2/ freezing 3/ fruit drying and 4/ making fruit juice.

Tanifood is completing procedures to obtain the license to treat fresh fruit for export to choosy markets such as South Korea and Japan.

Vina T&T now has seven fruit export units with three preliminary treatment facilities in Dong Thap, Ben Tre and Tien Giang, and material areas under strict control that satisfy VietGAP and Global GAP standards.

The enterprise has built a fresh coconut plant in Ben Tre province with the capacity of 25 million coconuts a year.

Chanh Thu Fruit Import/Export in Ben Tre has just inaugurated a fruit processing facility capitalized at VND50 billion. It is now managing up to 25 fruit growing area codes with total area of 400 hectares.

Meanwhile, Thuan Thien Thanh Company specializes in Siamese custard apple products with a three tons per day processing factory in Dong Thap province. Its products are available in Singapore, Brunei, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea and the US. Most recently, they entered the Chinese market.

Chanh Thu Import/Export’s director Nguyen Thi Hong Thu said China has recently set stricter requirements on quality of fruit exports. Only products with high quality and processed with modern technology can be accepted by customers.

According to Nguyen Dinh Tung, general director of Vina T&T, his company has invested VND400 billion in agriculture projects, of which 30-40 percent has been spent on equipment and technology.

Currently, fresh coconut for export can be preserved for 80 days, longan for 45-60 days, dragon fruit 30 days, and mango 30 days.

“The preservation duration is relatively short and we will have to prolong the duration by 2-3 times to ensure the competitiveness of products,” Tung said.

The increase of 10.3 percent compared with the same period in 2018 in fruit exports has offset the difficulties in pig farming, which has suffered from the African swine fever epidemic, as well as rice, coffee and pepper farming, which has faced a price crisis.

Kim Mai

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