If the output of Chinese lychee increases by more than 11%, should Vietnamese lychee be worried about a “slump”?

The total output of lychee in Vietnam this year is about more than 200.000 tonnes. Photo: Nguyễn Thanh

According to the branch of Vietnam Trade Office in Nanning and Guangzhou (China), in 2020, it is estimated China's lychee area will be 533 thousand hectares (Guangdong is the largest place with an area of ​​about 278 thousand hectares, about 50% of China's total area).

The estimated total output of lychee in China in 2020 is about 2.55 million tonnes, up 11.3% compared to 2019 and approximately equal to the output in 2018 (about 2.6 million tonnes).

Due to the weather, the lychee crop in China this year began harvesting about half a month earlier than normal and is expected to last about two more months, ending in early July.

The forecast of lychee output sales in market in the following months: May is more than 536 thousand tonnes (down 7.7% compared to the same period last year); June is about 1.11 million tonnes (up 115.8%); while July is about 109 thousand tonnes (down 25.6%).

Currently, lychee is being sold via markets and online stores in China. Notably, on May 9, China's online shopping website Taobao launched the lychee consumption topic. The lychee season in this year, the best lychee in major growing areas including Guangdong, Hainan, Guangxi and Fujian will be sold on the Taobao network.

Besides domestic supply, every year, China mainly imports fresh lychee from Vietnam and Thailand.

The Import and Export Department (Ministry of Industry and Trade) stated that in 2019, due to unfavourable weather conditions, China's lychee production decreased. However, the weather was much better in 2020 and the production has returned to normal after an interruption due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, the supply of lychee in 2020 will be larger and this will impact strongly the selling price of lychee.

The Argo Processing and Market Development Authority (MARD) further informed that this year, about 70% of official main crops of lychee from China will be collected from the middle of June to the end of July, not deviating too much from the Vietnam lychee season.

This has posed worries for lychee consumption as China is the largest export market of this item.

In the local "capital" of lychee in Vietnam such as Bac Giang and Hai Duong, these worries have been calculated.

For Hai Duong, China is the traditional and largest market, consuming about 40% of lychee production. This year, Hai Duong’s lychee farmers harvested the main crop from June 1 to June 20, with total output of 45,000 tonnes, higher than 20,000 tonnes of the crop in the 2019.

Leaders of Hai Duong province asked the MARD to work with China to facilitate exports of lychee and at the same time, MARD is expected to support the export of lychee to the US, Australia, EU and Japan in the near future.

Regarding the lychee season this year, Bac Giang has an output of more than three times compared to Hai Duong, estimated at more than 160,000 tonnes, an increase of 10,000 tonnes compared to 2019. Duong Van Thai, Chairman of Bac Giang People's Committee, said Bac Giang has took the initiative in building three scenarios of lychee consumption.

Specifically, the best scenario is exporting to traditional markets and new markets. The second scenario features difficulties but it still exportable. The third scenario is the most difficult and it cannot be exported.

The leader of Bac Giang province emphasised that: "Facing the complex situation of the Covid-19 pandemic, the province was ready to launch all three scenarios in all situations. Besides that, the domestic market is a potential market with about 100 million people. Exploiting well the domestic market, the lychee output of Bac Giang has absolutely no need to worry about the output."