HÀ NỘI — The Red River delta province of Hưng Yên on Thursday opened the longan week in Hà Nội to honour the province’s specialty product.

The festival hosts 10 pavilions to promote, introduce and sell longan fruits as well as other types of agricultural products. This is a good opportunity to localise longan and farm produce to Hà Nội’s customers and neighbouring areas.

Nguyễn Minh Quang, vice chairman of the provincial People’s Committee, said that in recent years, the provincial People’s Committee has instructed provincial departments to intensify trade promotion activities, introduce and advertise the Hưng Yên longan brand to domestic and foreign consumers. For the domestic markets, Hà Nội, HCM City and other provinces and cities in the North are key markets.

To date, longan products planted in accordance with VietGAP standards have been sold at the beginning of the season in the retail distribution system in big supermarkets and fruit markets in Hà Nội and HCM City.

At the same time, the province will further expand and develop new potential markets to bring the Hưng Yên longan brand to serve consumers in the provinces and cities throughout the country. Hưng Yên still maintains export of fresh longan and processed longan products. China is defined as the focal market, with most of the fresh longan products exported to this market. In addition, the region continues to connect and promote in the markets where the fruit has been successfully introduced such as the United States, Japan, Australia and the Republic of Korea.

According to Hưng Yên’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, in 2018, the area of growing longan in the province is about 4,340ha and the area for harvesting about 3,820ha. The province’s total longan output is over 40,000 tonnes per year, concentrated in some main areas,  including  Hưng Yên City, Khoái Châu (1,650 ha), Kim Động, Tiên Lữ, Phù Cừ and Ân Thi districts.

On this occasion, there is also a signing ceremony on supplying and distributing Hưng Yên longan with CoopMart, Hapro and many typical enterprises as well as cooperatives.

The festival is organised at the Trade Promotion Centre of Agriculture, No. 489 Hoàng Quốc Việt, Cầu Giấy District, Hà Nội and will run until September 4. — VNS