Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Vietnamese agricultureofficials made fruits a key export product as it can bring eight or nine timesmore in value compare to rice production.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) thisyear added fruits to its list of key export agricultural products along withseafood, rice, cashew nut, timber, furniture, coffee, rubber and pepper.

"Demand for fruits and vegetables on the world marketincreases by 3.6 percent every year,” a representative of MARD said.

“There is a big chance for Vietnam to develop its fruitproducts to the world market,” he added.

Currently, Vietnamese fruits are exported to 60 countries.Fruit export turnover hit 3.5 billion USD in 2017 and is projected at 3.6billion USD this year. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization ofthe United Nations (FAO), the world's market for vegetable and fruit has agrowth rate of nearly 2.9 percent in 2016-2021.

Vietnam’s vegetable and fruit export value currently accountsfor less than 1 percent of the global vegetable and fruit revenue, which showsthe great potential of this sector that still has more room to develop.

"Spanning as much as 40 percent of the rice plantingarea, vegetable and fruit growing areas bring export revenue much bigger thanthat of rice in Vietnam," said Minister of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment Nguyen Xuan Cuong earlier this year.

In the first seven months of 2019, the country exported morethan four million tonnes of rice worth 1.73 billion USD, 14.3 percent lower invalue from the same period last year.

Cuong told local media the world's average global trade inrice is only about 35-36 billion USD per year while the value of fruits was 240billion USD. With an average growth rate of 2-3 percent in the next five years,fruit production could create profit eight or nine times higher than rice, headded.

Focus on fruit hub in the south

According to Department of Crop Production, the south ofVietnam has the biggest fruit planting area of 600,000ha and total productivity6.6 million tonnes, accounting for 67 percent of production nationwide.

Common fruits in the region are mango, banana, dragon fruit,durian, orange, grapefruit, longan, pineapple, rambutan, jackfruit, avocado andpassion fruit.

Along with potential, MARD also sees challenge incultivation. Currently, the region's fruit farming is small scale, with a lackof processed fruit and low adoption of international plantation standards.

Dang Phuc Nguyen, General Secretary of Vietnam Fruit andVegetable Association, said as the fruit production hub of the south, fruitfarmers in the Mekong Delta work separately, making it difficult for them touse machinery to boost production.

To change this, Nguyen said MARD’s development plans aim totransform 500,000ha of rice growing land to either fruit growing or aquacultureproduction.

The ministry also pointed out only 10 percent of productionarea there is used for high quality products that meet Global Good AgriculturePractices (GlobalGAP) certificates, the international standard for exports tothe demanding markets of Europe, the US, Japan and South Korea.

To improve the situation, MARD has urged local departments toencourage farmers to apply international standards to their plantations.

Nguyen Quoc Toan, Director of the Agricultural ProductsProcessing and Development Department, said that product branding was also animportant issue.

Currently, only two products have national brands, rice and tea,so Vietnamese fruit products also need to get national brands soon.

To achieve this, the fruit and vegetable industry should payattention to requirements of export markets, traceability, labels andpackaging. In particular, it should pay attention to processed goods andincrease enterprises’ processing ability, as exporting fresh fruits facetechnical barriers while processed fruit products do not. Besides, processedproducts have higher added value./.