The unsold fruit is only temporary

ABO – On February 10, the delegation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, led by Mr. Nguyen Xuan Cuong, Member of the Party Central Committee, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, had the survey on the situation of fruit consumption in Tien Giang province.

Chairman of Tien Giang People's Committee Le Van Huong receives the delegation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, led by Mr. Nguyen Xuan Cuong, Member of the Party Central Committee, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.

According to Vina T&T Group, after the Lunar New Year 2020, some of the main fruits that the group purchased were harvested in large quantities and had many difficulties in output. Helping farmers to solve the output, the group stepped up purchasing to freeze. The purchase volume of this group was 8 - 9 times higher than this time of the year.

The biggest difficulty now is the large amount of frozen goods, the time of exporting the first container and the last container can be 5 months apart.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. Nguyen Xuan Cuong speaks at the working session.

General Director of Vina T&T Group Nguyen Dinh Tung proposed to the Government and other ministries and branches to direct the Logistics Association to support for cold storage or exemption and reduction of electricity bills for businesses when storing goods in order to reduce difficulties for enterprises.

Speaking at the survey, Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong emphasized: By this time, the area of vegetables and fruits of Vietnam is about 1.6 million hectares. It is equal to 45 percent of the rice area but the export reach over 4 billion USD. The Mekong Delta region currently has an area of about 0.4 million hectares with 10 tropical fruits. This is a potential area of 60-70 percent of Vietnam's total export of fruits. Tien Giang is one of the major region on developing fruit trees of Vietnam with an area of over 73,000 hectares, the highest in the country.

Surveying frozen storage at fruit processing facility of Vina T&T Import Export Service Trading Co., Ltd. Photo: ABO/SI NGUYEN

At this time, the export our dragon fruits to China is temporarily stagnant. However, we must be calm because we only have 1.6 million tons of dragon fruits to be expected to export. Of 1.6 million tons of dragon fruit allocated for the months of the year, we have interruptions in January, February and March. As a rule, these months are months of off-season dragon fruit production so that the output is not much. Therefore, we must focus on the domestic market consumption.

Comrade Nguyen Xuan Cuong urged all to take part in a fierce fight and consider this as an opportunity, not just for welfare. Selling at this time as well as selling products of people will have sense of the association. Last time, many businesses have also taken part, even those businesses have no interest, etc…

By SI NGUYEN – Translated by HUU CHI