Vietnamese passion fruit to break into US market

In 2025, Vietnamese passion fruit is expected to receive official approval to penetrate the US market. This milestone is the result of negotiations between Vietnam and the US department of phytosanitary measures.

Photo: baodautu.vn

According to the Plant Protection Department under Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, technical negotiations have been completed, and both sides are now finalising the necessary legal procedures.

The fresh move is expected to provide a significant boost for Vietnam's fruit and vegetable industry, enabling further export expansion, particularly to other demanding markets.

Vietnamese passion fruit has made inroads into 20 countries in diverse forms such as fresh fruit, froazen, and juice.

Currently, the country is home to more than 12,000 hectares of passion fruit cultivation, concentrated in the northern mountainous region and the Central Highlands where the area is expanding quickly, with an output approximating 200,000 tonnes.

Vietnam has emphasised enhancing the quality of passion fruit production through closed-value chains, ensuring traceability, and focusing on two main varieties: yellow passion fruit and purple passion fruit.

With strong global demand, approximately 80 per cent of Vietnam's fresh and processed passion fruit is exported.

Vietnam is among the largest producers and exporters of passion fruit in the world, following Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.

Over the past five years, both production volume and export value of passion fruit have shot up by more than 300 per cent, consistently ranking it among the top 10 high-value fruit export items. In 2023 alone, its export value surpassed $222 million.

Nguyen Quang Hieu, deputy director of Plant Protection Department, revealed that on average, it takes from three to five years to negotiate market access for a product. For technically demanding products, this process can take even longer.

“For instance, with durian, achieving today’s impressive growth required extensive market access negotiations that spanned several years. As early as 2016-2017, we began developing technical dossiers and went through numerous stages of negotiations to achieve the results we see today,” said Hieu.

This year has been deemed both challenging and highly successful for Vietnam's fruit and vegetable industry.

According to a report by the Agency of Foreign Trade under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, fruit and vegetable export value in November came to nearly $458 million, showing a 23 per cent jump on-year.

For the first 11 months of 2024, the country’s total fruit and vegetable export value surpassed $6.62 billion, up 27.4 per cent on-year. With this growth momentum, the sector is optimistic about reaching total export value of around $7.2 billion for the whole year.

Specifically, the US market saw strong growth in fruit and vegetable export value, reflecting improvements in product quality and Vietnam's ability to meet the stringent requirements of diverse trading partners.

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