Feature: Chinese market sweetens prospects for Vietnam's durian growers

LAM DONG, Vietnam, July 15 (Xinhua) -- Perched atop durian trees in Da Huoai commune of Vietnam's central province of Lam Dong, harvester Ho Minh Nhat carefully cuts loose each spiky fruit, knowing that many of them will soon begin their journey to China.

Nhat, who travels between Vietnam's southeastern and southwestern regions during the harvest season, said that the expansion of official durian exports to China since 2022 has made prices more stable than in the past, when growers depended mainly on the domestic market.

"When exports to China increase, prices become much better," he said.

"Life used to be much harder before durians were officially exported to China. We can now afford more meat and other foods that used to be considered expensive," he told Xinhua.

The improvement is also evident in the orchards where growers like Le Thi Ngoc Bich have seen their incomes rise alongside the expansion of durian exports to China.

Le Thi Ngoc Bich, who has cultivated her orchard for a decade, said the fruit has become her family's main income source, earning about 4 billion Vietnamese dong (about 158,700 U.S. dollars) last year alone.

Although she does not sell the fruit directly to Chinese buyers, Bich noticed that her returns climb steadily as more Vietnamese durian flows across the border.

"The quality of the fruit keeps improving and so does my family's quality of life," she said, adding the higher income has enabled her family to cover daily expenses more comfortably and lease another five hectares to expand cultivation.

China remains Vietnam's largest agro-forestry-fishery export market, and Vietnam gained 5.5 billion U.S. dollars from exporting fruits and vegetables to China last year, including 3.5 billion U.S. dollars from durians.

From the orchards, truckloads of freshly harvested durians are transported to KK Premium Fruits' packaging facility, where hundreds of workers sort, inspect and prepare them for export.

Packaging team leader Pham Chi Linh said his team processes more than 30,000 durians a day, carefully checking each one against export standards before cartons head for China.

He said working at the company has doubled his family's monthly income to about 40 million Vietnamese dong (about 1,587 U.S. dollars).

Company Chairman Le Duc Minh Khoa said his firm entered the durian business after gaining the trust of Chinese customers through its fresh coconut exports and spent six months studying Vietnam's major growing regions and visiting leading processing facilities in Thailand before deciding to invest in the sector.

The company currently ships an average of five to seven containers of durians to China every day and expects to export between 500 and 700 containers this year.

Production Manager Nguyen Pham Dang said the company's durian output is expected to reach around 14,000-16,000 tons this year, or 5 percent of the province's output.

"We are working to ensure that the best fruits will reach Chinese customers," Dang said.

Building strong connections across the agricultural supply chain was also a highlight at the first Vietnam-China agricultural trade forum held in Ho Chi Minh City recently.

At the event, Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Minh Vu called for stronger links among producers, processors, traders and distributors to build a more sustainable supply chain, describing agricultural cooperation as one of the most dynamic areas of cooperation between the two countries.

Chinese Ambassador to Vietnam He Wei said China-Vietnam agricultural cooperation has maintained strong momentum and delivered fruitful outcomes.

China stands ready to work with Vietnam to advance traditional agricultural cooperation toward coordinated development across the entire industrial chain, he added.