Myanmar melons costing as much as mahogany in Chinese market

Around this year’s Spring Festival, the domestic fruit market staged a "Myanmar watermelon" drama. A watermelon with diameter of nearly 30 cm, weighing more than ten kilograms, was sold for nearly 200 yuan ($32 USD). Myanmar watermelons have became a hot product in the domestic Chinese fruit market. In a fruit wholesale market in Wanding, a ton of a Myanmar Muskmelons, are priced at 18,000 yuan. At that price you can buy a ton of mahogany in the local area. Trucks from Myanmar and the mainland fill the wholesale markets with fruits, affecting the traffic at Wanding. This clearly shows the booming agricultural cooperation along the China-Myanmar border.

Located in the tropical and subtropical regions of Ruili, you have fertile soil, abundant rainfall, abundant sunshine, the conditions are very suitable for growing tropical fruits. The fruits produced here are big, juicy, sweet, and has been very popular in the domestic fruit market. Around the late 80’s and early 90’s, mainland fruit growers started leasing land to plant watermelons to sell them in the mainland. As city construction began to develop, the original small Ruiwan area of agricultural land began to get crowded. So the fruit growing local farmers began to go out of China, near the border to Myanmar and plant fruits there.

The border of the Ruili region in northeastern Myanmar has a lot of land but with a few people. The land is fertile. In the beginning, Chinese growers began planting only in one part of Myanmar, in Mujie, Nine Valley, etc., near the border. After 20 years of development, 105 yards to the Mandalay, to the capital of Yangon, has become the planting area for watermelons and other tropical fruits for Chinese farmers. With the arrival of Chinese farmers bringing in capital and technology to Myanmar, the original large areas of wasteland have now began to produce economic benefits to the local people. Many Myanmar locals who at first started to work for Chinese growers and planted melons, have now have learned how to use the land, invest capital and how to be partners. Currently, there is nearly a thousand Chinese farmers in Myanmar engaged in traditional agricultural planting who after harvest sell them products in the China market.