On April 26, the General Administration of Customs of China announced the list of 37 Cambodian mango growers and 5 packaging factories allowed to export to China. This means that Cambodian mangoes will occupy a place in China’s fruit market.
Since June last year, the two countries have been preparing for the mango trade. In March of this year, the applications of registered Cambodian mango orchards and packaging factories officially passed China’s review. It is reported that mango is the second fruit category that Cambodia is allowed to export to China, following banana.
In 2018, the export volume of Cambodian bananas was only about 10,000 tons. After being approved for export to China in 2019, the export volume soared to 157,000 tons and again surged to 210.8 million tons during the period of January to September 2020.
Data shows that the planted area of mangoes in Cambodia is currently 124,300 hectares, and the yearly production is 1.44 million tons. Due to the limited local demand and the huge income earned by exporting bananas to China, Cambodia has confidence in the fruit demand in the Chinese market and has been looking forward to exporting mangoes to China.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries of Cambodia estimated that China's demand for mangoes is as high as 8 million tons per year. Under the new agreement, Cambodia's annual export to China is expected to reach 500,000 tons.
In order to further satisfy the demand for fruits, China has continued to allow access to foreign fruit varieties. As of January 2021, China has given the green light to fresh fruits from 48 countries and regions. In 2020, China imported a total of 10.26 billion U.S. dollars of fruit and Thailand became the country’s largest source of fruit imports due to large durians exports.
At the same time, as the world's largest fruit producer, China’s apples, grapes, and oranges are favored by overseas countries. Among them, Vietnam and Thailand are the top two destinations.
Source: Financial Headlines