The Growth of ASEAN Fruits in China: From Luxury Goods to Fair Prices

On a hot summer night in Pingxiang City, a border city between China and Vietnam, the restaurant named "Huxishi Fruit Salvage" is the most lively scene. Diners from all over China line up to buy a bowl of authentic Southeast Asian fruit salvage.

The clerk put the fresh tropical fruit dices in a transparent glass bowl with hands and feet, covered with corn kernels, red beans and coconut shreds, poured two spoons of thick and fragrant milk, and a bowl of fresh and sweet fruit fishing can be served. Fruit salvage is Pingxiang's hotspot. Fruit is fresh and varied, and it tastes waxy and fragrant. Luo Zi, a frequent visitor to Huxishi Fruit Salvage, said that a bowl of fruit salvage, which gathered fruits from many countries in Southeast Asia, sold for only 10 yuan, was "very cost-effective". Pingxiang is the most convenient land passage for China to Vietnam and even ASEAN countries. It has maintained "the largest fruit import and export market in China" for five consecutive years. It imports and exports more than 1 million tons of fruits from Friendship Pass and Puzhai Port every year, with more than 500,000 tons of imported fruits. Four grams of ASEAN fruits enter China every 5 grams through Pingxiang. In the past, the cost of importing fruits from Southeast Asia to China was very high, the cold chain logistics network was imperfect, and the border customs clearance time was long, which led to the high price of fruits from Southeast Asia in China. Chen Renqi, general manager of Guangxi Hongguihua Import and Export Trading Co., Ltd., told China News Agency that his company has been engaged in import trade of Vietnamese pitaya fruit for 22 years, during which he witnessed the change process from "luxury" to "explosion" of Southeast Asian fruits.

Chen Renqi said that the import of white fruit pitaya from Vietnam was mainly aimed at domestic diabetic patients and high-end consumers because of its low sugar content. With the establishment of China-ASEAN Free Trade Area, cooperation between China and ASEAN countries has been strengthened in customs clearance facilities, transportation interconnection and other aspects. Southeast Asian fruits, represented by pitaya fruit, have begun to enter China in large quantities. Due to the gradual reduction of import costs, the sales price of pitaya fruit in China is becoming increasingly "close to the people", and it has entered the family recipes of ordinary people. In the past, Vietnamese pitaya had to enter China's ports, and customs clearance procedures such as inspection and quarantine were one day fast and two or three days slow, which cost a lot of time. Now the customs clearance time is reduced to one hour, which is too convenient. Chen Renqi said that there is a great demand for fruit in Southeast Asia in the Chinese market. In addition to traditional marketing channels such as farmers'markets and supermarkets, new industries such as chain fruit juice stores, theme restaurants and fruit experience centers, which mainly produce tropical fruit from ASEAN, have also developed rapidly, enriching the dietary choices of Chinese consumers.

In Pingxiang City, new ASEAN Fruit-Mixed Chinese dishes such as stewed pork ribs with peaches, steamed pear, stewed chicken soup with grapes, fried beef with pitaya fruit have become the "new favorite" of local people in recent years. Recently, China Pingxiang ASEAN Fruit First City Fruit Restaurant and Fruit Experience Center officially opened for customers. Local officials plan to combine fruit trade industry with tourism industry in depth, and make one-stop shopping and featured fruit meals of ASEAN characteristic fruits a new highlight on Friendship Pass tourism routes. In order to meet the domestic market demand, Chen Ren's company has set up several direct factories and several agent factories in Vietnam. Among them, Panche City, Vietnam, has the largest direct factory, producing 15 container containers of pitaya fruit every day. Every year, the company imports pitaya fruit from Vietnam with a total value of 1.5 billion yuan. Fresh fruit is in short supply in China.

"We are exploring more kinds of fruit products and marketing channels in Southeast Asia." In addition to pitaya, Vietnamese red meat and jackfruit have been welcomed by Chinese consumers in recent years, and the company has also started import business, Chen said. In Cambodia, the local price of fresh mango fruit has a great advantage over China. The company invested 40 million yuan in Cambodia to set up a mango dried processing plant. Mango dried products are transported through Sihanouk Port, via Ho Chi Minh Port in Vietnam to Qinzhou Port in China, and then distributed to all parts of China. At present, the annual output value of dried mango is more than 50 million yuan.

Chen Renqi said that more and more Chinese enterprises are joining the ASEAN fruit industry, which means that the quantity of ASEAN fruit entering the Chinese market will continue to expand in the future. In the increasingly perfect international agricultural and trade cooperation and market competition environment, ASEAN fruits in China "increase in quantity and increase in price, but the quality will continue to optimize".