Trade office warns of future durian competition from China

By The Nation

 

Durians from Chanthaburi, eastern Thailand

 

Thai farmers are being urged to improve the quality of their durian in order to preserve market share after China’s Hainan province succeeded in growing durian seedlings imported from Malaysia.

 

Wanlada Rattanapanich, director of the Department of International Trade Promotion (DITP) office in Nanning, China, said the department has watched as China attempted for quite some time to grow durian trees.

 

“A private company in Hainan province bought 20 ‘Sanno’ durian seedlings from Malaysia and succeeded in growing them in Sanya city in southern Hainan,” she said.

 

Feng Xuejie, president of the Hainan Tropical Fruit Institute, revealed that growing durian in China has always been a challenge for local farmers, as durian trees need more space than typical fruits and usually take four to eight years to bear fruit.

 

“We have been trying to grow durian trees for decades, but the results were mostly unsatisfactory, such as small fruit and insipid taste,” said Xuejie.

 

“Although the latest attempt to grow Sanno durians from Malaysia was quite a success, there is still the risk of failure if the farming areas cannot control the weather conditions like we did in the lab and test plots.”

 

Wanlada added that although Hainan is still unable to produce sufficient quantity or quality of durians for domestic consumption or export, with continued research and development they could become a future competitor to Thailand.

 

“Currently more than 80 per cent of fresh durians in the Chinese market are imported from Thailand,” she said. “To preserve the market share, Thai farmers need to maintain and improve the quality of our product especially in terms of fruit size and unique taste.”

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30375868

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2019-09-05

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Tasty.but challenging ..

Edited September 5, 20196 yr by mok199

Malaysia are also selling to China and increasing the numbers fast.  As usual Thailand will sit on its hands and expect to become the 'Hub' of Durian without doing anything...result...failure !

Say "goodbye" to the durian export market. So sad for the poor farmers affected!

Hainan..You can VOA. 10K baht return flight from UTP. Go there and you will see why Chinese pour into Pattaya...

Or, it'll bring the prices back down in Thailand for domestic consumption. This year it was very expensive for Thais due to so much bring exported. 

There’s nothing like a little competition to put business (or farmers) on their toes. 

 

Hope they wake up okay before it is too late. 

Or, it'll bring the prices back down in Thailand for domestic consumption. This year it was very expensive for Thais due to so much bring exported. 

Too expensive IMO, and not just for the Thais

Prices are ridiculous I think there is a little greed in the pricing too....

Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

34 minutes ago, Khunbilly said:

Or, it'll bring the prices back down in Thailand for domestic consumption. This year it was very expensive for Thais due to so much bring exported. 

I am a Cheap Charlie and I like things cheap.....Durian price needs to be cut in half to so I will buy again...

They could reduce them to 1 baht a ton, I still would not buy it, unless i could use the skin as kitty litter for the neighbours cat

So the Chinese managed to copy even durian. Following the path of the Japanese, first copy, then conquer. It' a legit MO.

Thailand has had a lot of competition when it comes to exporting any fruit to China, albeit there is a temporary lull in fruit exports from the U.S. to China during the current Trump tariff war.

From 2018 China Fruit Import Statistics ( https://www.producereport.com/article/2018-china-fruit-import-statistics-released ):

A continued "hot" baht will not improve Thailand's fruit exports in general to China.