Indonesian Bananas Given Official China Market Access

On Nov. 23, China’s General Administration of Customs announced via its website that fresh bananas from Indonesia meeting the stipulated phytosanitary requirements would be permissible for import into China.

According to the announcement, bananas exported to China must be in a green unripened state and originate from permissible growing regions in Indonesia. The list of quarantine pests of concern includes coconut scales (Aspidiotus destructor), brown soft scales (Coccus hesperidum), tip rot of banana (Colletotrichum musae), pineapple mealybugs (Dysmicoccus brevipes), gray pineapple mealybugs (Dysmicoccus neobrevipes) and diplodia pod rot of cocoa (Lasiodiplodia theobromae).

Orchards and packaging plants dealing with banana exports to China must be jointly approved by China’s General Administration of Customs and its counterpart, the Indonesian Agricultural Quarantine Agency, part of the country’s Ministry of Agriculture. Also of note is that the banana plantations must follow Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and a pest control program called integrated pest management (IPM). Processing operations conducted by the packaging plants must be overseen by the Indonesian Agricultural Quarantine Agency or its authorized agents.

Additionally, the Indonesian Agricultural Quarantine Agency is required to take a random sample of 2% of bananas bound for China to check for the presence of pests of concern. The sampling ratio will be lowered to 1% if there are no quarantine problems for one year. The occurrence of ripe or contaminated bananas will lead to the rejection of the whole shipment by China or even suspension of exports from certain orchards and packaging plants involved for the remainder of the season. Bananas exported by unregistered orchards or packaging plants, or bananas which don’t meet China’s food safety standards will also result in the refusal of the whole shipment.

Indonesia is one of the major banana producers in the world, with 70% of its crop concentrated on Java Island. Each year, most of the bananas produced by the country are consumed by its domestic market, with a relatively small portion destined to overseas markets in East Asia and the Middle East. On the whole, Indonesia’s banana trade has been sluggish over recent years owing to the effects of El Niño. In 2021, $6.09 million worth of Indonesian bananas were exported, only about 40% of that in 2018.

Image: Pixabay

This article was translated from Chinese. Read the original article.