Cambodian mangoes show benefits of fruitful cooperation

KAMPONG SPEU, Cambodia－How long does it take to peel a ripe mango? For Cambodian workers, the answer is "a few seconds", too fast to be seen clearly.

At the Long Wo Fruit Industry Co Ltd in Western Kampong Speu province, ripe mangoes are peeled, sliced, dried and packaged, and then sent to Chinese consumers thousands of kilometers away.

Lu Song, general manager, says that the company began exporting dried mangoes to China in 2017 and that with the increase in market demand, the export volume has risen rapidly, reaching about 1,500 metric tons per year.

"Although the COVID-19 pandemic has affected sales this year, there is still strong demand on the Chinese market for Cambodian dried mangoes."

Lu hopes to use dried mangoes as a star product to open up the Chinese market, gradually establishing a complete industrial chain covering mango planting, processing, and export, and extending it to more fruit-related products.

Chen Qisheng, general manager of the Cambodian branch of the China Certification and Inspection Group, says that thanks to the free trade agreement signed between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Cambodia's dried mango exports to China enjoy preferential tariff status.

He says that, currently, there are more than 20 Chinese companies engaged in dried mango processing in Cambodia.

Huang Kejin, managing director of Cam MJ Industrial Park, which was launched at the end of 2019, says the first project that his park attracted was a dried mango processing factory.

"The factory has not only solved problems that local fruit farmers had with exporting mangoes, but also promoted local employment," he says.

He is optimistic about the prospect of exporting Cambodia's dried mangoes to China, saying that next year, a total of three dried mango processing lines in the park will be put into operation, capable of handling about 42,000 tons of mangoes a year.

In October, China and Cambodia signed a bilateral free trade agreement, and in November, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership trade deal was signed among 10 ASEAN countries and China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

The two pacts will bring more benefits to Cambodia's agricultural exports.

Chen says that, in the past five years, China's consumer market has grown rapidly, and there has been an increasing demand for high-quality agricultural products, especially tropical fruits.

As China's support for Cambodia's agricultural development continues to increase, more high-quality agricultural products will be directly exported to China, and Cambodian agriculture will see more opportunities for development.

In June, the two countries signed a protocol on phyto-sanitary requirements that would pave the way for the exports of fresh mangoes to China.

"We hope to export our fresh mangoes to China officially in the near future," Cambodia's Agriculture Minister Veng Sakhon tells the media. "When the export starts, I believe that a market shortage will no longer concern our farmers."

According to the minister, the kingdom has planted more than 124,000 hectares of mango trees, yielding around 1.44 million tons of fresh mangoes per annum.

"The upcoming export of fresh mangoes to China will contribute to economic growth and poverty reduction in Cambodia's rural areas," he says.

Xinhua