Vietnamese lychee first exported to Japan in 2020 season

Japan’s decision was enclosed in a letter by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan (MAFF) with regulations on imported plant quarantine for Vietnamese lychee, which took effect from December 15th, 2019.

Accordingly, Vietnamese lychee exported to Japan must be grown in gardens supervised and granted area codes by the Plant Protection Department, and comply with Japan’s regulations on plant quarantine and food safety.

Exported batches must be packed and treated with Methyl Bromide at facilities recognised by the Plant Protection Department and the MAFF with the minimum dosage of 32g/m3 for two hours under the supervision of Vietnamese and Japanese plant quarantine officers.

They must be accompanied with a phytosanitary certificate issued by the Plant Protection Department.

Lychee is the fourth fresh fruit of Vietnam, after dragon fruit, mango and banana, allowed to be imported into the Japanese market, one of the markets with the world’s highest standards in quality and food hygiene. This is a great opportunity to stabilize production and consumption for lychees. It is even more important in the context of the complicated Covid-19 epidemic, causing many agricultural products of Vietnam to be seriously affected by not being exported to China as well as some other markets.

The Plant Protection Department under MARD has instructed localities to carry out measures to meet partner’s requirements. Besides making favourable conditions for administrative procedures and standard inspection by authorized agencies, the department has focused on increasing farmers’ awareness in production and businesses’ prestige and responsibility in exporting agricultural products. Accordingly, farmers have to fully obey importer’s regulations while businesses only buy quality products. 

“Thieu” lychees have been exported to 30 countries, with 90% of the exported goods going to China and the others to the EU, Russia, the US and Canada./.