Thai fruit exports expected to face more competition next year

In the first 10 months of this year, Thailand exported 1.74 million tons of fruits, up 12.7% year on year. The exports were worth US$5.06 billion (174.27 billion baht), up 31.9% year on year. The top five exported fruits were durians (965,284 tons), longan (274,064 tons), mangosteen (245,049 tons), mango (104,154 tons) and pineapple (36,618 tons). China has been Thailand's top fruit importer accounting for 91.6% of Thai fruit export value, followed by Malaysia (2.0%), Hong Kong (1.6%), Indonesia (1.0%) and South Korea (0.8%). Even though China is likely to import more fruits, intense export competition would pose challenges to Thai suppliers, Napintorn said. For instance, Thailand once completely dominated China's durian market, but its share fell to 95% last year due to inroads by Vietnamese exporters who took 5%. In the first 10 months this year, Thailand's share had fallen to 70% of China's durian market with Vietnam seizing 30%. "Vietnam has gained advantage in durian exports ...