Phytosanitary Protocols for Vietnamese Banana Exports to China Inked

According to Vietnamese media reports, Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and China’s General Administration of Customs recently signed the official protocols specifying the phytosanitary requirements for export of Vietnamese bananas to China. Formal market access to China is expected to be a boon for Vietnamese banana growers and exporters.

The banana protocols were inked alongside a dozen other bilateral agreements covering various fields when Vietnam’s top leader, Nguyen Phu Trong, visited China from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1.

Le Minh Hoan, minister of MARD, stated that the protocols will ensure price stability, increase customs clearance efficiency and ease congestion at border crossings for banana exports to China. These benefits are expected to improve the reputation of Vietnamese bananas in the Chinese market.

The protocols stipulate that all bananas exported to China must originate from growing regions and packing facilities jointly approved by both MARD and GACC. Banana orchards must follow Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and packing plants are required to establish a traceability system to ensure exported bananas meet China’s food safety standards. Furthermore, Vietnamese bananas must enter China at ports of entry specifically approved by GACC.

To date, eleven different types of fruit from Vietnam have secured official market access to China: dragon fruit, longans, rambutans, mangos, jackfruits, watermelons, bananas, mangosteens, lychees, durians and passion fruit.

Vietnamese passion fruit exports to China are under a pilot scheme, with only two overland border crossings in China’s Guangxi province allowed to process the exports. Furthermore, passion fruit imported from Vietnam can only be consumed by the food processing sector.

As a matter of fact, Vietnamese bananas are not a newcomer to China. While the signing of protocols signals that Vietnamese bananas will soon be approved for export to China via normal trade channels, they have long found their way into China through the duty-free border trade scheme, which was originally intended to provide economic stimulus to small local companies and individuals based in China’s less developed border regions. According to data collected by Vietnam, approximately 430,000 metric tons, 574,000 metric tons and 591,000 metric tons of Vietnamese bananas were delivered to China in 2020, 2021 and the first nine months of 2022, respectively.

Images: Pixabay

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