US market opens up to Vietnamese fruits
“The star apple exports have gone beyond our expectations,” said one of the negotiators, very pleased with the result. But he noted that only several months have elapsed since the day Vietnam’s star apples were accepted to the US. Dragon fruit, longan, mango, litchi and star apples are also now exported to the US markets.
The US has also opened its market to Vietnam’s mangoes. It is expected that the ceremony for the first mango export shipment ceremony will be organized in April 2018.
Nguyen Dinh Tung, director of fruit exporter Vina T&T, said the demand for star apples in the US is surprisingly high. Though optimistic about the US market, exporters have been advised to be cautious when exporting products to the US.
English.vietnamnet.vn quoted Tung as saying exporters should learn lessons from the export of litchi to Australia. As the demand soared, Vietnamese enterprises exported litchis in large quantities, selling lower-quality litchis and setting lower prices. This led to the assumption that Vietnam’s litchis have low prices and are of similarly low quality.