For many years, China has been the world's largest durian consumer market. In 2023, this country spent nearly 7 billion USD to buy a large amount of durian from Southeast Asian countries, mainly from Thailand and Vietnam. In China, people love durian so much that they eat everything from the flesh to the shell. Accordingly, the soft, ripe durian flesh with a rich, sweet and fatty taste is eaten directly, used as an ingredient to make many dishes such as durian cakes, durian candy, durian ice cream, etc. Durian flesh is even dipped in hot pot or combined with passion fruit and cheese to make a seafood dipping sauce.

Not only do Chinese people love the sweet and fatty rice, they also eat durian skin. Photo: Manh Khuong

According to traditional Chinese medicine, durian pulp is warm, slightly bitter, and affects the liver, lung, and kidney meridians, so it has the effect of nourishing health, warming the lungs, dispelling colds, and helping to reduce weakness... Therefore, in addition to durian pulp, people in this billion-people country also peel off the green thorns on the outside of the durian shell to get the white pulp. The durian pulp is cut into small pieces and added to stewed chicken and pork rib soup. The leader of the Plant Protection Department (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) commented that Vietnam still has a lot of potential to export durian to China because the size of this market will quickly reach the 10 billion USD mark in the near future. In fact, since mid-2022, when durian officially had a "passport" in the Chinese market, the export turnover of this fruit has continuously set historical records. Specifically, if in 2021, durian exports earned only 178 million USD, then it quickly increased to 421 million USD in 2022. By 2023, durian export turnover set a record of 2.24 billion USD, officially becoming Vietnam's new "billion-dollar fruit". This year, after only 9 months, according to statistics from the General Department of Customs, durian exports (HS code 0810.60.00) have reached 2.66 billion USD, a sharp increase of 63.7%, equivalent to an increase of 1.04 billion USD compared to the same period last year. Vietnam's "king fruit" continues to break the record of the whole year 2023 even though there are still 3 months left until the end of 2024. Notably, 95% of our country's durian is exported to the Chinese market, other markets account for a fairly modest proportion. Recently, Vietnam continued to sign a protocol with China to officially export frozen durian to this market. Enterprises expect that the first batches of frozen durian from Vietnam will be exported to China in November this year. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, by the end of September this year, our country's durian output had reached nearly 985,000 tons, an increase of nearly 17% over the same period last year. The expected output for the whole year is estimated at 1.2 million tons. There are still many growing areas for harvest in the last months of the year. Meanwhile, the Vietnam Fruit and Vegetable Association estimates that by the end of October, durian export turnover could reach 3 billion USD.

Vietnamnet.vn

Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/nguoi-trung-quoc-me-sau-rieng-tu-com-den-vo-viet-nam-trung-dam-2-66-ty-usd-2334851.html