Dragon fruit price has increased due to more export opportunities. Photo binhthuan.gov.vn

LONG AN - Dragon fruit prices in Long An Province have started to increase as more export opportunities become available, Nguyễn Quốc Trịnh, Chairman of the Long An Dragon Fruit Association, said on Tuesday.

"Now, traders buy dragon fruit from farmers at prices of VNĐ25,000-33,000 (US$1.07-1.42) per kilo for first and second-grade red flesh dragon fruit. On Monday, the first-grade red flesh dragon fruit rose to VNĐ40,000 per kilo," Trịnh told the Pháp luật TP HCM (HCM City Law) newspaper.

The price of red flesh dragon fruit has increased from VNĐ6,000 to VNĐ33,000 per kilo.

In Bình Thuận, the price of white flesh dragon fruit has also surged from VNĐ7,000 to VNĐ16,000 per kilo.

"We still export dragon fruit to China by sea, but the exports are smaller in volume. We have mainly shipped dragon fruit to Malaysia, Singapore and Canada," said Võ Huy Hoàng, chairman of the Bình Thuận Dragon Fruit Association.

Due to the novel coronavirus epidemic, cross-border import and export activities have been tightened, causing shipments of many agricultural products, including dragon fruit, to be stuck for many days at the border. Therefore, the prices of dragon fruit fell sharply to about VNĐ5,000-6,000 per kilo.

To solve the difficulty, large distribution systems and supermarkets around the country have promoted the consumption of agricultural products, including dragon fruit.

However, Trịnh said traders have preferred to export the fruit because the price is higher than in the domestic market.

“The farmers have sold dragon fruit for about VNĐ17,000 per kilo to supermarkets, while traders have purchased dragon fruit for export from the farmers at prices of about VNĐ30,000 per kilo,” he said.

Long An has entered harvest season for dragon fruit and, due to difficulties in consumption, the province has stockpiled around 30,000 tonnes.

Trương Quang An, director of Tầm Vu Dragon Fruit Cooperative in Long An Province, said his cooperative is seeking enterprises to process farm produce for export and partners to export those products to regional countries such as Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.

Lavifood general director Đặng Ngọc Cẩn said his company has promoted the processing of dragon fruit products, such as juice, dried fruit and frozen products.

The company has two factories in operation, namely Lavifood Long An Factory with annual capacity of 10,000 tonnes of processed products and Tanifood Tây Ninh Factory with annual capacity of 60,000 tonnes. Therefore, they can process more than 500 tonnes of dragon fruit per day, Cẩn said.

However, Lavifood had to change its business plan in 2020 as it faces many challenges in terms of capital, labour and consumption. To solve the difficulties, the company plans to increase exports to markets with high demand, such as South Korea, Japan, the US and nations in Europe, he said.

Nafoods Group has also sold about 200 tonnes of dragon fruit per day. Together with increasing domestic consumption, Nafoods has aimed to diversify export markets.

Besides China and Europe, Nafoods has signed several cooperation agreements with partners in large markets, such as Russia, Australia, India and the Middle East.

Nguyễn Quốc Toản, director of the Department of Agro-product Processing and Market under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, told Đầu tư (investment) newspaper that Việt Nam has been developing agricultural trade counsellors in Việt Nam’s embassies abroad to create favourable conditions for the export of agricultural products. Việt Nam has agricultural trade counsellors in the US and EU.

They would follow market information and support enterprises in exporting farm produce and expanding markets for those products.

The Department of Processing and Market Development of Agricultural Products has also established four teams following markets according to regions in the world, including the East Asia market team following Japan, South Korea and ASEAN, the China market team, the America market team and the EU market team.

This year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will hold the Vietnam-Brazil Business Forum to promote cooperation in agricultural and aquatic consumption and organise working delegations to the US to seek opportunities in exporting agricultural products. It will also organise the Việt Nam-Russia Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery Business Forum in Russia.

After the coronavirus epidemic, to resume trade with the China market, the ministry will organise many trade promotion activities in China, including participation in the Vietnam - China International Agricultural Fair and organisation of the Vietnam - China Business Forum on cooperation in tea and coffee consumption.  VNS