Lao Cai International Border Gate Customs: Agricultural products flourish

	Containers of exported dragon fruit stuck at Lao Cai International Border Gate
	Lao Cai Customs: Seize large quantity of smuggled crawfish
	Reduce 9 teams at the Branches under Lao Cai Customs Department and Ha Giang Customs Department

Operation at Lao Cai Border Gate Customs Branch. Photo: T.B

Talking to Customs news, Deputy Manager of Lao Cai Customs Branch (Lao Cai Customs Department) Tran AnhTu said that agricultural products carrying out customs procedures for export to China are quite diverse and plentiful.

Five major exported commodity groups include dragon fruits; dried cassava and tapioca starch; green banana; pepper and cardamom; fresh flowers and other vegetables such as watermelon, jackfruit, rambutan, lychee and longan.

Notably, contrary to the decline in exports of many key agricultural products of the country, export turnover of these commodity groups at Lao Cai Border gate Customs Branch has prospered with high growth rates in both output and turnover.

Specially, commodities such as dried cassava,tapioca starch and green bananas have high growth rates.

According to Lao Cai International Border Gate Customs Branch, from the beginning of the year to October 14, the branch has processed customs procedures for more than 475,000 tons of dragon fruit with total value of more than US$310 million, increasing by 15% in volume and 15.4% in value compared to 2018.

It has also processed procedures for more than 1.36 million tons of dried cassava and tapioca starch, withtotal value of more than US$26.4 million, increasing by 58% in volume and 97.8% in turnover.

In addition, green bananas reached nearly 5,200 tons with total turnover of nearly US$2.4 million, up 91% in volume and 42.5% in value.

Pepper and cardamom reached 27,600 tons, with a total value of US$67 million, increasing by 21% in volume and 3% in value.

Fresh flowers and other vegetables reached more than 59,000 tons, with total value of more than US$30 million, up 60 percent in volume and 11.2 percent in turnover.

Notably, dragon fruit products have only started to be processed in Lao Cai province from the beginning of 2017, but currently, this is one of the major dragon fruit export areas of Vietnam to China – one of Vietnam's largest agricultural export markets.

Leaders of Lao Cai Border Gate Customs Branch said that to facilitate agricultural import and export activities between the two countries, the governments of Lao Cai and Yunnan provinces (China) signed a cooperation agreement. Accordingly, the competent forces of the two sides will arrange forces to quickly solve procedures for imported and exported agricultural products, and arrange a private channel to carry out procedures for this commodity.