They have organised events on connecting local enterprises with partners at home and abroad to expand the consumption market for dragon fruit. They have also implemented solutions to speed up the clearance of goods at border gates, including priority in plant quarantine and transport for exported dragon fruit.

In August, the Binh Thuan Department of Industry and Trade coordinated with the Trade Promotion Department (under the Ministry of Industry and Trade) to hold an online conference on Vietnamese dragon fruit with potential export markets in 2021.

At the conference, dragon fruit production and trading enterprises and cooperatives in Binh Thuan connected with Indian partners, as well as businesses in Australia, Japan, China and Europe, opening up opportunities on expanding the export market for dragon fruit in the future.

Earlier this year, the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) officially granted the Protected Geographical Indication certificate to Binh Thuan dragon fruit. This is the second agricultural product of Viet Nam to receive the certificate, after Luc Ngan lychee.

This certificate has a great significance to affirm the prestige of Binh Thuan dragon fruit and create many new opportunities for exporting this product to key markets such as Europe, South Korea and New Zealand.

Binh Thuan Department of Industry and Trade in September issued a plan to develop production and expand the consumption market for Binh Thuan dragon fruit.

Accordingly, the plan would help expand the dragon fruit export market, besides increasing export volume to traditional export markets and enhancing trade promotion activities.

At present, Binh Thuan mainly consumes fresh dragon fruit, of which 80-85 per cent are for export and about 15-20 per cent for the domestic market.

Binh Thuan Province now encourages farmers to increase product quality in dragon fruit production but not expanding production areas for the sustainable development of this product.

According to Phan Van Tan, deputy director of the Binh Thuan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, VietGAP standards are also applied for sustainable development of dragon fruit production. That has increased the value of dragon fruit products and met demand of export markets. On the other hand, the use of pesticides is also minimised, increasing the prestige and quality of Binh Thuan dragon fruit products.

By September, the VietGAP-certified area growing ​​dragon fruit has reached 11,500ha, accounting for more than 30 per cent of the area growing dragon fruit in the province.

Besides, Binh Thuan Province is forming a dragon fruit production region with high technology in two districts of Ham Thuan Nam and Ham Thuan Bac.

The Binh Thuan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has also requested the Sub-Department of Crop Production and Plant Protection and relevant agencies to strengthen the management and supervision of the use of planting region codes and codes of dragon fruit packing establishments that have been granted to organisations and individuals in the province.

It would also coordinate with the Market Management Department to strengthen inspection and control of the labelling at dragon fruit packaging facilities in accordance with existing regulations.

Binh Thuan has so far proposed the Plant Protection Department to grant codes to 78 dragon fruit growing regions and 268 of dragon fruit packaging facilities in the province.

This province has 33,750ha growing dragon fruit trees with a total output of 700,000 tonnes per year. China has been one of the key export markets of Binh Thuan dragon fruit. — VNS