Positive changes

The past ten years has seen rapid growth in the fruit and vegetable sector in Vietnam. In 1995, the country had only 328,000 hectares under vegetables and bean plants, providing an output of 4,155 tonnes and then the land area expanded to 840,000 hectares with a yield of 9.6 million tonnes of products. During the same period, the area of cultivated land growing fruit trees in 2005 was estimated at 766,900 hectares together with 6.5 million tonnes of fruits as compared to 420,000 hectares and 3.5 million tonnes in 2000. The processing capacity of the sector stood at 290,000 tonnes of products per year, a double increase over 1998. Export turnover in 1995 maintained at US $56.1 million and rapidly jumped to US $259 million in 2006, of which US $76 million came from the Vietnam National Vegetables, Fruits and Agricultural Products Corporation. The major processed fruit items for export include frozen and canned pineapples, vinegar-picked cucumbers, rambutan and fruit juices together with fresh vegetables and fruits such as cabbages, mango, bananas, litchi and green dragon fruit. The products are already available in 50 markets from Japan, China, Russia, the US, Britain, France and Germany.

However, the development of the sector is still a far cry as far as real potential is concerned due to poor planning. Only some localities in the Mekong River delta have focussed on growing high quality and high yield vegetables and fruits while other areas continue to maintain their old farming ways and fail to apply new preservation techniques, leading to significant loss. Meanwhile, a number of processing factories operate at low capacity due to the shortage of supplies and this limits the delivery of large quantity.

Challenges and opportunities

having joined the WTO, the country is committed to reducing import tariffs of agricultural products to an average rate of 20.9% and removing export subsidiaries. Foreign businesses are allowed to participate in producing and exporting vegetables and fruits, thus bringing greater pressure to bear on the sector. Fresh and processed fruits from China and Thailand are pouring in Vietnam. This requires domestic businesses to renew the planting and processing techniques as well as management methods to make high quality and low price products. Vietnam is to be open to 149 WTO members, an opportunity for the sector to expand co-operation, exchange experience and seek new technologies in order to raise competitive abilities.

In recent years, the Vietnam National Vegetables, Fruits and Agricultural Products Corporation has taken a number of measures aimed at building a long-term development strategy to boost processing and export activities. Several processing plants have been built with modern facilities such as the Dong Giao fruit processing plant in Ninh Binh province, the canned and cold vegetable and fruit plant in Bac Giang province and the Tan Binh plant in Ho Chi Minh City. Many products including cold vegetables and fruit juices have met high requirements of customers in Japan, the US, Britain, France and Germany. The corporation has invested in planting 10,000 hectares of pineapple in Ninh Binh, Bac Giang, Quang Nam and Kien Giang to ensure sufficient material for processing.

In fact, the sector needs to implement further measures in order to improve planning of cultivated areas, build modern processing factories and raise abilities in the area of marketing and consumer research, thus helping businesses to select appropriate production plans.

It is expected that Vietnamese vegetables and fruits businesses will make greater efforts in the coming period so as to raise their competitiveness and make full use of opportunities in the process of international integration.

Source: Nhan dan