Binh Thuan province’s specialty - dragon fruits - are to be exported directly to the US for the first time following a preliminary agreement made during Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s recent visit to America.

Dragon fruits on sale in southern Viet Nam.

However, Vietnamese businessmen must have “real breakthroughs” in creating prestigious brand names if the fruits, called thanh long in Vietnamese are to be exported and successfully accepted in the US, warned Nguyen Ngoc Hai, director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Over the last two years, three large local cooperatives were granted the European Retail Produce Good Agricultural Practices (EUREPGAP) certificate clearing the way to EU markets, Hai informed.

Last month a team of US experts visited Binh Thuan and concluded that the local quarantine and packaging systems would have to be improved to make the fruits completely bug-free before it can gain access to the US market.

Dao Thi Kim Dung, director of the Binh Thuan Dragon Fruit Center, said the province had proposed that the US start importing the fruit within two months of approval.

During his visit to the US last month, PM Dung proposed to President George W. Bush that the country open its market to fruits and vegetables from Viet Nam.

Dung later told a meeting with overseas Vietnamese in Texas that Vietnamese dragon fruit did in fact make it to the US, but only after being rebranded in Thailand or Singapore.

If thanh long could make its way directly to the US market this year, other Vietnamese fruit specialties such as longans, rambutans, lychees and even durians would follow, he said.

Currently, Binh Thuan, home to more than 10,000 hectares of farms that produce over 150,000 tons of thanh long every year, earns US$20 million in exporting the fruits annually, mainly to China.

Over the first five months of the year, the province transported over 10,240 tons of blue dragon fruits to China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Thailand , earning over $6.9 million. However, this figure does not match the province’s capacity and potential, said Hai.