Vegetable, fruit exports hoped to hit record high

Illustrative photo (Source: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – Vegetable and fruit export revenue is hoped to hit a new record of 3.6 billion USD in 2017, with bumper crops forecast for the rest of the year.

As of September 15, exports of the products hit 2.49 billion USD, up 46.7 percent from the same period last year, faster growth than the country’s overall export growth.

Last year, vegetable and fruits ranked 14th out of 24 products with export revenue of over 1 billion USD, above crude oil, rice, plastics and steel.

Currently, Vietnam has about 820,000 hectares of fruit farms, including 92,000 hectares of rambutan, 86,000 hectares of citrus fruit trees, 84,000 hectares of mango, 73,000 hectares of longan and 1,000 hectares of grape farms.

Output of longan this year is forecast to reach 512,000 tonnes, while that of citrus fruits is 741,000 tonnes, rabutan 721,000 tonnes and mango 702,000 tonnes.

Thanks to agricultural reform and the development of agricultural technology, the production of fruits is rising.

In the first eight months of this year, Vietnamese fruits were sold in 14 foreign markets with leading ones including China, Japan, the US, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Malaysia and Thailand.