A customer buys longan at Big C Thăng Long in Hà Nội. The “Sơn La Longan and Safe Farm Produce Week 2019” will run until July 23. — VNS Photo Mai Hương

HÀ NỘI – Building a good trade marketing campaign will help provinces not only increase sales of their agricultural products but effectively build their product brands.

The statement was made by Vũ Đức Thuận, deputy director of the Sơn La Province’s Department of Planning and Investment at the launch of the ‘Sơn La Longan and Safe Farm Produce Week 2019’ at Big C Thăng Long on Friday.

This is the second year the event has been organised by the provincial People’s Committee and Big C Thăng Long (of the Central Group Vietnam) to promote the province’s agricultural products, with longan being the key fruit to Hà Nội and other neighbouring localities’ customers.

This year, 21 local enterprises with 30 booths are displaying their products, many of them have obtained safe food standards such as VietGap and GlobalGap including longan, custard apple, mango, passion fruit, avocado, banana, red flesh dragon fruit and other farm produce.

Thuận said since last year, the province had built a trade promotion campaign to introduce Sơn La’s safe agricultural products which had seen positive results.

“More people know about the province’s products and the trade promotion activities have stimulated concentrated production in the province and kept the prices stable,” Thuận told Việt Nam News, adding that total areas of fruit trees in the region doubled last year, reaching more than 64,000 hectares in 2019.

Especially, awareness of local farmers about the brand has changed significantly, Thuận said, adding that now farmers have paid attention to fruit preservation, packaging and origin traceability which meets export standards to the EU and China.

Most of the products in the Sơn La Longan and Safe Farm Produce Week 2019 could be traced in terms of origin of production, he said.

The total area of longan cultivation in the province increased to more than 15,000 hectares this year, a 2.5-fold increase compared to 2015, with output expected at 73,000 tonnes. Longan exports this year is estimated at nearly 10,000 tonnes (fresh and processed fruit) worth about US$10.6 million.

Besides longan, the province has cooperated with Big C to organise many weekly trade activities to promote other agricultural products such as strawberry, plum, mango and Đà river fish. Sales of the province’s agricultural products at Big C achieved a stunning growth rate of 20 times, data of the supermarket chain showed.

Thuận said Sơn La Province was focusing on developing agricultural cooperatives, helping farmers expand fruit gardens, product design, packaging and product brand promotion.

Apart from Big C, the province also introduced their products in other modern retail chains including Lotte, Hapro and Co-opmart, he said.

The “Sơn La Longan and Safe Farm Produce Week 2019” will run in Big C Thăng Long until July 23.— VNS