Chinese traders use old trick on Aussie mango

Duong Ton Doan, deputy CEO of the EMU Vietnam Co, a 100 percent invested Australian company and the sole exporter of Aussie mango in the province, said some Chinese traders, assisted by their local counterparts, have been collecting a large quantity of the fruits in Cam Lam District and exported them across the borders.

“[The Chinese] offered to buy at an exorbitant price, and paid no attention to the fruit quality, sending a number of local farmers into scrambling to sell to them,” said Doan.

Doan said the Chinese mass purchase has messed up the market and put his processing facilities in trouble.

“This crop we only managed to buy some 240 tons of Australian mangoes, which is less than a half of the harvest of local farmers,” he said.

He added that the company has also discovered that Australian mangoes grown in Vietnam are being on sale in Hong Kong, but most of the fruits are of poor quality.

“This will affect the Vietnamese mango reputation, and international consumers may boycott the products, while our company will lose many exporting markets,” he said.

Following the company’s concern, the provincial People’s Committee has ordered the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to caution farmers against the trick of Chinese traders.

In related news, the People’s Committee of Phu Yen Province has recently called on the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to order the Directorate of Fisheries to stop licensing Chinese boats to enter the waters of Vung Ro to buy seafood.

“Vung Ro is not zoned for aquaculture production so if Chinese traders buy seafood there, local farmers will rush to run illegal fish farms,” the committee’s deputy chairman Le Van Truc said, adding the foreign boats will also affect the national defense activities of the province.

Earlier local authorities detected the Chinese 8366 ship as repeatedly entering the waters of Vung Ro to buy groupers from local companies to export back to China.