HÀ NỘI — The Việt Nam Cooperative Alliance had a meeting with the People's Committee of the south-central province of Bình Thuận on the development of growing, processing and exporting in the province by 2025.

The project is developed by the Việt Nam Cooperative Alliance (VCA), the provincial people's committee and the Lavifood Joint Stock Company to contribute to the sustainable development of the dragon fruit production chain.

It also targets to improve economic efficiency for businesses, cooperatives and businesses, while increasing competitiveness and expanding dragon fruit consumption in Bình Thuận Province.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has identified dragon fruit as the first among 11 fruits with competitive advantage in Việt Nam.

Nguyễn Ngọc Bảo, VCA chairman, said that nowhere was there a large dragon fruit growing area like in Bình Thuận Province.

“This is a great advantage to build a chain of planting, processing and exporting dragon fruits,” he said.

However, in order to implement the project effectively, Bảo asked the province to speed up mechanisation and application of technical advances in dragon fruit production; ensure infrastructure such as electricity, water and roads for fruit production areas.

The province needed to focus on producing organic dragon fruit and developing a production roadmap to meet the needs of market diversification, he added.

Bình Thuận had more than 30,600 hectares of dragon fruit with an output of more than 640,000 tonnes last year, said Phan Văn Tấn, deputy director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The province had more than 10,300 hectares and 450 packing facilities meeting VietGAP standards and seven units were granted certificates of safe dragon fruit production under GlobalGAP standards with an area of ​​about 387 hectares by last month.

The province currently has 35 cooperatives and one cooperative alliance producing dragon fruits.

Bình Thuận dragon fruit has been exported to 17 countries such as India, China and Malaysia.

After the meeting, the VCA and relevant agencies will submit to the Prime Minister and ministries and branches to resolve difficulties and problems regarding mechanisms and policies to support and promote sustainable development of a dragon fruit production chain. — VNS