After more than half a month of traffic jams, durian trucks have passed through Lang Son border gate, marking a positive signal for the end-of-year crop.
Speaking to Lao Dong Newspaper reporter, Mr. Vu Quang Khanh - Deputy Management Board of Dong Dang - Lang Son Border Gate Economic Zone - said: "As of November 1, agricultural vehicles, especially durian, at border gates are showing a sharp decrease and have almost returned to normal status".
According to statistics, the total number of vehicles carrying goods at the border gates on October 29 was 381, of which 180 were carrying fruit, including 116 durian vehicles. This figure has decreased by 46 vehicles compared to October 28.
As of October 30, the number of outstanding vehicles continued to decrease, with 367 vehicles (including 167 fruit vehicles, including 83 durian vehicles, 129 other cargo vehicles and 71 vehicles with unknown products), a decrease of 14 more vehicles compared to the previous day.
According to Mr. Khanh, the reason why hundreds of durian vehicles have been congested in recent times is that many laboratories serving agricultural product testing have temporarily stopped operating for maintenance, interrupting the inspection of mandatory indicators such as Cadmium and O gold.
The current laboratory system is jointly managed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, but operates independently in each locality. When many rooms are temporarily closed, the testing capacity nationwide will decrease sharply, Mr. Khanh added.
This interruption has caused nearly 2,000 durian containers nationwide to be stagnant, many businesses have to rent cold storage or transit areas such as Tan Thanh bus station, Xuan Cuong wharf or Viettel Logistics Park to store goods.
A representative of an exporting enterprise said that each durian container has to start a refrigerator continuously, consuming about 50 liters of oil/day, equivalent to nearly 1 million VND in fuel costs.
"If the situation continues, the cost can increase to tens of millions of VND, not to mention the risk of partners refusing to accept goods due to late delivery," he said.
In Dak Lak, Mr. Le Anh Trung - Chairman of the Provincial durian Association - said that there are still 40,000 - 50,000 tons of durian that have not been harvested. The delay in customs clearance in the final stages of the crop has caused durian prices to decrease, causing great damage to many ripe fruit gardens.
Ms. N.H (Dlie Ya commune, Dak Lak province) sighed: "For the past half month, we have been sitting on a pile of fire. Recently, there has been continuous heavy rain, the durian has fallen while traders are still hesitant, not coming to cut and purchase agricultural products because of border congestion, and cannot clear customs".
This farmer also said that before that, her family had to let traders harvest more than 5 quintals of durian at a cheap price, lower than the market price to avoid losses.
"Sure is different from pepper and cashew. For these items, if traders do not buy them, they can still dry them for preservation, but if durian is weak, there is only one way to lose it and cannot do anything else, like gambling", Ms. H confided.
Previously, according to Mr. Huynh Tan Dat - Director of the Department of Crop Production and Plant Protection, Vietnam currently has 24 testing rooms recognized by the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC) for durian exports, with a total theoretical capacity of about 3,200 samples/day, enough to meet actual demand.
However, from mid-October 2025, some testing rooms have temporarily stopped operations due to maintenance, equipment damage or waiting to be re-evaluated.
In that situation, on October 24, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Environment Hoang Trung held an urgent meeting with relevant units, requesting the designated facilities to review the operational status, transparency of capacity and ensure accuracy and unity between the domestic and Chinese results.
After a week of drastic action and close direction from the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, the situation of durian testing has basically returned to normal, ensuring trade activities for businesses.
