Big volumes of Southeast Asian durians are flowing into the Chinese market ahead of the Chinese New Year, causing supply and pricing pressures to the main exporter Thailand. Large quantities of the tropical fruit are entering China from Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia. This is leading to price reductions.
China imports fresh and frozen durians. In the past decade, most fresh durians in China used to come from Thailand. From 2021 to 2022, some 800,000 tons of fresh durians were shipped from the SE Asian country to China. But Vietnam is challenging that dominant position as last July, China and Vietnam signed an agreement to allow Vietnam to export fresh durians to China.
The competition is heating up as early this year, China and the Philippines signed a quarantine agreement to allow exports of fresh durian to China. The first batch of fruit is expected to arrive after the Spring Festival, an industry source told Yicai Global. Meanwhile, durians from Malaysia can only enter China frozen.
Source: yicaiglobal.com
