Fruit Exporters Seek More Opportunities In U.S. Market

News - Thanks to an upsurge in the U.S.’s demand, local exporters have sought more opportunities to accelerate fruit export to this market. However, they have yet to break formidable barriers on food safety.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Vietnam’s farm produce exports to the U.S. in August fetched US$2.6 million. In the first eight months of this year, the figure reached US$18.6 million, up 9.4% year-on-year.

More chances

A large number of industry players asserted that the appetite of European-American and African-and Asian-American people had paved the way for a sharp rise in tropical fruit and vegetables consumption in the U.S. On average, every American spends around US$232 on 124 kilograms of fruit a year, Matthew Lantz of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), told a seminar on farm produce export to the U.S. held in HCMC earlier this month.

The U.S. total fruit import spending amounts to US$3.4 billion annually, indicating a pretty high demand of fruit of the country, said Lantz. He suggested Vietnam take the advantage to boost its fruit export to the U.S.

Furthermore, the fact that Vietnam will join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) also offers a great opportunity for local fruits to approach the U.S. market in a much more effective way. The U.S. is imposing a tariff of 2.2% on fruit exporters, but this level will be lowered to 0% for Vietnam after she joins TTP.

On the other hand, TPP also creates another favorable condition for Vietnamese agro-product exporters. The U.S. tightening supervision on animals and plants under the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) will enable Vietnamese exporters to map out advantageous import terms for themselves.

“These guidelines will make it clearer for Vietnamese fruits to approach testing issues in America and other TPP’s markets,” said Lantz. To export fruits to the U.S. in a better way, Lantz supposed that Vietnamese enterprises should directly sell products to American buyers to save costs. For example, he said, local firms could promote products in the U.S. via community organizations, farmer associations or retailers.

Overcoming technical barriers

Despite opportunities in the U.S. market, local exporters have still confronted with barriers on food hygiene and safety. Neglecting this reality Vietnam will fail to increase its export turnover as targeted.

At that seminar, several exporters shipping fruits to the U.S. expressed their concerns over new technical barriers that the latter had just set up. Red Dragon Co.’s director Mai Xuan Thin complained that some shipments of dragon fruit from his company had been detained for an antibiotic residue test. Meanwhile, the U.S. plant inspection agencies have yet to announce criteria on permitted antibiotic residue for imported fruits. This has worried Vietnamese exporters, including those licensed to export dragon fruits and rambutans to the country.
A director of a HCMC-based fruit export firm insisted that Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development work with relevant American authorities to solve this issue as soon as possible. He believed getting a good hold of specific regulations set by the U.S. will help Vietnamese exporters be more active in to preserving and processing fruit, especially when the volume of fruits exported to this market has been on the rise in recent years.

Answering the questions of local businesses relating to the aforementioned issue, Lantz informed that the U.S. has yet to set up detailed rules of antibiotic residue for every kind of imported fruits. Nontheless, it tends to apply stricter criteria on food hygiene and safety for all imported products based on new regulations of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) issued on April 1. The U.S. Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), which was passed by Congress in 1938, gives authority to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to oversee the safety of food, drugs and cosmetics. FDCA has been amended many times but FSMA is the biggest amendment to food safety over the decades.

As per FSMA, FDA has the right to appraise and control food safety of products provided by foreign sellers. It has been given the authority for the first time to coercively recall suspected products that should have been voluntarily recalled by exporters. Hence, according to Lantz, local exporters involved in the U.S. market have to analyze and identify possible risks of processing, manufacturing and transporting products to control and minimize these risks.