The granting of agricultural growing area codes is considered key to opening the door for Vietnam’s agricultural products to reach global markets, according to experts.

The codes for growing areas and packaging facilities have facilitated control over product quality while ensuring origin traceability, which helps to promote the prestige of Vietnamese products in the international market and boost exports.

This also contributes to improving production habits among farmers to meet market demand.

There are nearly 6,500 growing areas in 53 of Vietnam’s 63 cities and provinces and 16,000 packaging establishments in 33 cities and provinces granted codes for export.

Twenty-five farm producers have been issued codes for exports to key markets such as China, the US, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, and the EU.

China is one of Vietnam’s largest fruit export markets. Codes for growing areas and packaging establishments is compulsory for exports to the country via official channels.

In the first four months of this year, the export of fruit and vegetables earned nearly $1.4 billion in revenue, a year-on-year increase of 19 per cent.

The export of durians posted the highest growth among exported fruit and vegetables in the first quarter of the year, earning $153 million, up 8.3-fold year-on-year.

More than 65,000 tons of durians were shipped abroad in the first five months of the year, a year-on-year rise of 41 per cent.

China is the largest import market of fresh durians from Vietnam, accounting for 97 per cent.