A farmer harvesting mangoes in Khanh Hoa Province's Cam Lam District. Vietnamese mangoes are expected to be exported to Australia this year. — VNA/VNS Photo Quang Quyet

That was good news for Vietnamese farmers as well as enterprises trading in fruit products, the office said. Now, the office has implemented market research and connected with Australian partners to prepare export activities of Vietnamese mangoes to Australia soon after receiving the licence.

In 2013, the Vietnamese Farmers Association in North Australia with 100 Vietnamese farming households, built a distribution system of Vietnamese mangoes with popular brand names in the Australian market, including Vina Mango and T.V Farms, Binh Duong Farm and Sai Gon Farm.

On April 4, 2016, on the sidelines of the visit to North Australia made by ASEAN ambassadors, Vietnamese Ambassador to Australia Luong Thanh Nghi, and Head of Viet Nam Trade Office in Australia Nguyen Thi Hoang Thuy, had a meeting with the executive committee of Vietnamese Farmers Association in North Australia, reported chinhphu.vn.

The association committed to support the import and distribution of Vietnamese mangoes in the Australian market.

Last year, after 12 years of waiting, Viet Nam received approval from Australia's Department of Agriculture to export lychees to their market.

Irradiation in the north

In a related development, the Ha Noi Irradiation Centre is ready to implement irradiation services for fruit exports this year.

According to the department, the centre has been upgrading equipment to reach international standards for irradiation of fruit products.

The centre, under the Ministry of Science and Technology (MST)'s Atomic Energy Institute of Viet Nam, was initially a small agency providing irradiation services for products in the healthcare field.

Since the end of 2014, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and MST have provided VND20 billion (US$909,000) in funds to improve the centre and equip it with irradiation services for fruits due to the high demand on exporting local fruit products to many foreign markets, such as the United States and Australia.

Hoang Trung, deputy head of department, said the Ha Noi Irradiation Centre has been upgrading completely and that would ensure a great opportunity for the export of fruit products in the north of Viet Nam, especially lychees and longan.

That meant the fruit export enterprises would not transport their products to the South for conducting irradiation activities as before and would therefore save between VND15 million and VND16 million per tonne of fruit in terms of transport and time.

So far, there have been five companies who registered for the irradiation services in the centre for export lychees and longan this year, Trung said.

The department said that in the long term, together with irradiation services, the enterprises should ship export products to foreign markets by sea via Hai Phong Port in large volumes and preserve fresh fruit products in cool containers to retain the freshness and quality of the products. — VNS