HANOI: One of Vietnam’s key importers of fresh fruit has expressed its ‘regret’ at being unable to accept fruit from any Australian states.
“Vietnam has appreciated for years the good quality of Australian fruits: Midnight Beauty, Thompson, Crimson and Red Globe grapes,” notes Peter Nghia, head of sales with the NC Group, Ltd.
These are specific early season black grapes traditionally popular with the Vietnamese market. But the import of fruit from Australia has not been allowed since early January, due to concern from the Vietnam government over the presence of fruitfly in Australian crops.
The Vietnamese market base has been discouraged, and consequently consumers in general have been put off, according to Mr Nghia. While a number of fruits have been impacted by the ban, table grapes and cherries are two of the hardest hit.
The table grape industry within Australia stands to lose as much as $33 million, thanks to the ban, while only about a third of intended of exports of cherries to Vietnam was able to go to its intended home in Vietnam before the ban came into effect. That means an opportunity loss of around $2.3 million.
When it comes to cherries, New Zealand growers have “won the advantage,” through exclusive supply while both Australian and Chilean cherries are out of the game due to there being no import permit, unfortunately for them, admits Mr Nghia. South Africa and Peru are supplying the missing grapes that would come from Australia.
While the cherry industry is flexible enough to have found new markets across Asia for the remainder of its harvest, it shouldn’t have to happen like this, according the Simon Boughey, CEO of the Cherry Growers Australia. “Our industry has been able to adapt to that but there’s still that issue. As soon as you get out of a market you know other countries are going to fill it.”
