China suspended imports of Vietnamese durians from 33 sources this month, in a move suggesting some growers may have cut corners to quickly enter its vast, competitive market – and providing an opening for a slew of eager competitors to step in.
The General Administration of Customs told officials in Vietnam in a letter on June 11 that it would stop shipments from 18 durian plantations and 15 packers over excessive amounts of “heavy metals” in the fruits.
China had initially deemed 33 plantations and 40 packers “unsuitable” in the letter, which was posted by several Chinese and Vietnamese news outlets.
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The document said customs officials chose which ones to suspend based on domestic laws, a bilateral agreement and an abiding interest in minimising damage to the durian trade.
Vietnam’s swiftly expanding share of sales for the spiky, pungent and lucrative fruits in China – the world’s biggest durian market by a wide margin – may have pushed growers to seek volume at the expense of quality.
“Even though Vietnamese durian growers can benefit from exporting to China, the sudden rise in exports without quality control may harm the prestige of Vietnamese durians in the long term,” said Nguyen Thanh Trung, a political scientist at Fulbright University Vietnam.
Vietnamese growers first received permission to ship durian into China in 2021 and became the country’s second-biggest source of the fruit last year, trailing only Thailand.
China imported 1.4 million tonnes of durian in 2023, and Thailand’s share in US dollar terms dropped from almost 100 per cent in 2021 to about 68 per cent last year.
In the first five months of 2024, Thailand shipped US$2.2 billion worth of durians to China, a year-on-year drop of 2.5 per cent according to Chinese customs data. Vietnam’s exports, meanwhile, surged 61 per cent to a value of US$661.48 million.
The influx of Vietnamese durians has been cited as a cause of falling prices in China, where the fruits command enough cachet to be gifted at special occasions such as weddings.
The Chinese customs administration urged Vietnamese authorities to learn where the suspended companies had gone wrong, take measures to fix the problems and step up their scrutiny “to prevent related situations from happening again”.
An official from Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, plus two Vietnamese agricultural provinces, issued warnings last year about an oversupply of durians and possible quality problems, the domestic VnExpress International news outlet reported in October.
The ministry’s horticulture head said that when durians are grown in “unsuitable areas”, they produce “low-quality fruits, causing damage to farmers and to the Vietnamese durian brand”, according to the report.
As of April, China’s import price for durians from Thailand was US$5.80 per kilogram according to the customs administration, while Vietnamese durians stood at US$4.22 per kilogram.
The suspension comes at a moment of particular pressure for Vietnam, as Malaysia has been given a first chance to ship fresh durians to China – making it an effective competitor with the other two Southeast Asian countries.
A deal signed with China last week will benefit 63,000 Malaysian growers, according to Kuala Lumpur’s government-owned Bernama news agency. China had previously allowed imports of Malaysian durian pulp and paste in 2011, and frozen durian in 2018.
Malaysian growers are likely to meet China’s export standards through “better agricultural practices, leading to higher-quality produce”, said Lim Chin Khee, an adviser with the Durian Academy, an institution that trains Malaysian growers.
Competition from Malaysia may “shock” Vietnamese durian growers into paying “more attention to durian quality than quantity”, Nguyen said.
China’s customs officials, however, indicated in their letter they were keen to move forward on Vietnamese imports.
“The Chinese side wants to increase dialogue and cooperation with your side, appropriately resolve issues that come up in the context of fruit imports to China and protect the healthy development of trade in agricultural products between the two countries,” it read.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang and his Vietnamese counterpart Pham Minh Chinh also pledged to pursue “more fruitful achievements” when meeting in China on Monday, state media reported.
Additional reporting by Mia Nulimaimaiti
More from South China Morning Post:
- Premier Li Qiang pushes China’s trade, academic agenda during Asia-Pacific tour
- China’s durian prices drop as Vietnam steps in to make up for gaps in Thai supply
- China’s durian output to quadruple in 2024, processing poised to permeate with demand ‘on a rapid rise’
- China allows more durian from Vietnam as surging trade underpins new ‘codependency’ in ties
- Who will be China’s durian king when the market expands? Do Philippines, Malaysia have a shot?
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