Vietnam shipped its first consignment of rambutan to New Zealand this week, marking an end to seven years of negotiations, reports Viet Nam News.
Some 520 2kg-cartons of irradiated rambutan, packaged and labelled in line with New Zealand standards, left Vietnam for New Zealand on 3 October, the report said.
Vietnam is the first country granted a licence to export fresh rambutan to New Zealand, the publication said.
This is the third Vietnamese fruit after dragonfruit and mango entering New Zealand, a country with strict quarantine requirements.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Embassy of New Zealand officially announced in April that Vietnam had permission to export its rambutan to New Zealand.
This followed seven years of negotiation and efforts to meet standards on regions of cultivation, packaging, labelling, radiation treatment and quarantine, Viet Nam News said.
Vietnam exports a total of around 20,000 tonnes of rambutan annually to the US, China, Canada, the EU, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and South-East Asia, the report said.
The country produces around 300,000 tonnes of rambutan, grown on 50,000ha mainly in Vietnam’s southern provinces.
