Korean apple and pear exports to Vietnam have risen sharply over the last six years, thanks to growing demand for high-quality fruit for gift-sets during festival periods.
According to Korea Agriculture Food Trade Association figures cited in Vietnam News, Korea’s pear exports to Vietnam rose 9,440 times in value terms in the 2011 to 2016 period, from US$52,000 in 2011 to US$4.96m last year. Apple exports, meanwhile, went up by 928.8 per cent in the period, from US$66,000 to US$679,000.
Recent USDA data states that Korea exported 3,432 tonnes of fresh pears to Vietnam in 2016/17, which is 161 per cent higher than the previous marketing year.
And this season (2017/18), Korean fresh pear exports are projected to increase to 27,000 tonnes, around 900 tonnes higher than the previous marketing year, mainly due to increased demand in the Vietnamese and US markets, the USDA says.
“Recently, Korea’s fresh pear exports to Vietnam have increased significantly as the demand for high quality imported fruits from Thailand, Japan and Korea has increased. In recent years, high quality imported fruits have become very popular in gift sets in Vietnam,” write Sunyoung Choi and Amanda Hinkle in the USDA’s latest Korean pear Gain report.
Cao Thị Quỳnh Giao, director of Lâm Khải Hoàn Co.Ltd, told Vietnam News that Vietnamese consumers are fond of Korean pears “due to their good quality and reasonable prices”.
Tạ Minh Thành, deputy director of Tứ Sơn Supermarket in Châu Đốc, An Giang Province, said his supermarket started to sell Korean pears and apples two and a half years ago, and that pear sales in particular were very good.
“We want to find suppliers of apple/pear gift boxes to serve customers on the occasion of Lunar New Year holiday,” he said.
