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Processed Fruit Industry 2022: Thai Fruit Exports Are Strong
Processed Fruit Industry 2022 Fruit exports this year Fruit plays an important role in Thailand's agricultural export category. This can be seen from 2021, even though Thai rice exports began to slow down.
Thai fruit exports are booming, overcoming COVID-19
Export products in 2022 Fruits play an important role in Thailand’s agricultural export category. This can be seen from 2021, even though Thai rice exports began to slow down, the total value of agricultural exports did not decrease as a result of the benefits of fruit exports, which were worth as much as 5.7 billion dollars (6 times the amount of fruit exports in the past 10 years).
and holds the highest share of the agricultural export market at 29%, leading to the expectation that Thai fruit exports will continue to improve in line with continued popularity from major trading partners, mainly in Asia, due to the fast delivery time of the fruit, which maintains freshness and low delivery costs.
The most important exported fruit is durian, the “king of fruits”, with an export value of 3.5 billion dollars in 2021, an increase of 68 percent. Next in line are longan and mangosteen, which are also continuously popular abroad, but with a relatively stable growth rate. These three exported fruits account for 84 percent of fruit exports, with important markets including China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam.
Due to concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic since the end of 2019 and the ongoing infection, Thai fruit exports are still able to expand well, with high demand from consumers, especially China, for durian, longan, and mangosteen.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Commerce Jurin Laksanawisit revealed after chairing the 2/2022 fruit management measures progress monitoring meeting and fruit export problem resolution that the meeting agreed to set up a war room to monitor and resolve fruit export problems to China.
Which has the Director-General of the Department of International Trade Promotion as the chairman and has representatives from the government sector, private sector, exporters, longans, farmers and related logistics associations working together as a working group to monitor the situation every day, every week.
Fresh fruit exports to China are considered a large market of 90% of Thailand. In 2022, Thailand aims to export 530,000 tons, with a goal of increasing the volume of fruit exports through 3 main channels: 83% by sea, 6.5% by air, and 10.5% by land.
Land transport to China through 4 main ports: Mohan, Youyiguan, Dongxing and Pingxiang. There is an issue of opening and closing Chinese ports due to the COVID situation and China’s Zero-COVID policy. Therefore, the plan has been adjusted to send more by sea in order to complete the plan to send all 530,000 tons of fresh fruit to China as targeted.
Data from the Department of International Trade Promotion shows what processed fruits there are – Fruit production in 2022 is expected to total production of 5.36 million tons, an increase of 11% from last year.
And Thai fruits exported to the world from January-March 2022 amounted to 754,027 tons, valued at 33,983.90 million baht, divided into 225,159 tons of fresh fruits, 213,578 tons of processed fruits and cans, 180,254 tons of dried fruits, and 9,620 tons of chilled and frozen fruits.
Although exports have continued to expand, Thai exporters, including Thai farmers, still face several challenges, such as:
1) Concentration of export markets: mainly relying on the Chinese market, which may be at risk from China’s trade measures related to Thailand’s export process, which are strict, may increase transportation costs for Thai exporters. In addition, there is a risk in the future that Chinese consumers may turn to buy more fruits with exotic flavors from producers in other countries. If Thai entrepreneurs turn to process more fruits to present exotic flavors, this could be another opportunity to expand the fruit export market.
2) Income of Thai farmers: In addition to production innovations, financial technology innovations that connect buyers and sellers to meet online are also important for the adaptation of Thai farmers. Therefore, the cultivation of new knowledge and methods, such as creating E-commerce sales channels, is another way to increase income for Thai farmers.
3) Zoning management and future durian production volume to reduce concentration during the market release period: During the period when fruit exports are intense, farmers are encouraged to grow more durian. If all the production is released to the market in large quantities without expanding the export market at the same time, production that exceeds market demand will put downward pressure on product prices, which will have an impact on the export value.
However, despite the high demand for products during COVID-19, exporters are still facing several export process constraints, such as international transportation measures, restrictions on the closure of some transportation channels, and sterile product control. However, Thai entrepreneurs have adapted and been able to cope well with the situation during the epidemic.
Information source: Bangkok Business and Prachachat Business
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