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Helping Vietnamese fruit to enter US market
“Vietnam still cannot say that the path of its fruit to the US market is absolutely smooth,” said Dam Quoc Tru, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Plant Protection Agency.
I have heard that experts from the US Department of Agriculture came to the Southern Fruit Tree Institute to discuss US imports of longan and rambutan from Vietnam. Do you think that Vietnam now has big opportunities to export fruit in big quantities to the US?
I have to say that Dr Pham Ngoc Lieu, Deputy Head of the Southern Fruit Tree Institute, gave inaccurate information at the workshop on growing, processing and exporting fruit held in Tien Giang province on September 4, which has caused misunderstandings.
The officials from the US Department of Agriculture did not come to Vietnam to place import orders. Placing orders is the job of enterprises, not the task of the management agency. The officials came to Vietnam at the invitation of the Vietnam Plant Protection Agency under the framework of the programme on implementing Global GAP on Vietnam’s fruit trees.
In order to pave the way for Vietnamese fruit to enter the US market, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has had to undergo many negotiations in recent years and implement many programmes at the request of the US Department of Agriculture. We had to make great efforts to get a ‘passport’ for Vietnamese fruit to go to the US; the US does not come to Vietnam on its own to place orders.
Could you please tell me about the negotiations and the efforts made by Vietnam to send Vietnamese fruit to the US?
US consumers prove to be the most difficult-to-please in the world. They are afraid of insects and pesticides. That explains why no consignment of Vietnamese fruit has been able to enter the market so far.
In order to send Vietnamese fruit to the US, Vietnam has to follow the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and meet requirements set by the US.
Exported fruit must meet requirements on food hygiene, under which pesticide and plant protection substance residues must be within the allowed level.
In 2000, MARD signed a cooperation agreement with the US Department of Agriculture, which paved the way for the two sides to cooperate in the field of plantation protection.
In 2005, Vietnam asked the US side to allow it to export 16 types of fruit. Since 2006, the Plantation Protection Agency has been working around the clock training staffs and filling out the ‘SPS records’: declaring measures it will take to ensure the safety of the 16 types of fruit.
The US began surveying Vietnamese thanh long (blue dragon) in 2005, and it accepted opening the market for the fruit on July 31, 2008.
The problems for Vietnamese fruit are high plantation protection substance residues and fruit flies. Vietnam has found 30 types of fruit flies, including three types on blue dragon. The US side has asked Vietnam to exterminate the fruit flies and the experts from the US Department of Agriculture have been here in Vietnam for the last three months to show us how to exterminate the flies and supervise the work.
To date, three Vietnamese companies have been licenced to export blue dragon to the US, namely Son Son Company in HCM City, Hoang Hau and Ham Minh Companies in Binh Thuan province.
What standards did the Plantation Protection Agency refer to to name the 16 types of fruit?
Vietnamese companies flew to the US to survey the market and came up with 16 fruits which seemed to have the greatest potential, including bananas, blue dragon, durian, guava, plums and others. These are tropical fruits which are favoured by many American people.
After blue dragon, it is expected that from now to the end of 2008, longan and rambutan will also be exported to the US. Vietnam now has a vast growing area of 60 ha for each kind of fruit
You have said that the US has allowed Vietnam’s blue dragon to enter the US as of July 31. Why has no consignment of blue dragon been exported so far?
We have got the passport for blue dragon to enter the US market, but the exports depend on enterprises. Tran Trong Ngam, Director of Son Son Company, said that if everything goes smoothly, the first consignment of blue dragon will leave Vietnam for the US on September 20, 2008.
The fruit prices in the US are much higher than in Vietnam. However, it is not easy to make profit on export deals. It would be unfeasible to send fruit by air as it costs $10 per kilogramme. Therefore, fruits have to be shipped by sea, which takes some 10 days; therefore, companies have to make heavy investment in preservation work.
We still cannot say anything about the profit or loss of exporting fruit to the US until we have information from the first export deal.
VNN
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