On August 20, in Dalian city (China), a delegation from the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment led by Deputy Minister Nguyen Hoang Hiep worked with the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC).
At the working session, the two sides exchanged solutions to promote agricultural trade, remove technical obstacles and strengthen coordination mechanisms.
Notably, the Chinese side announced that it has completed the assessment of 736 durian dossiers of Vietnam, including 487 growing areas and 249 packaging facilities.
As a result, 401 growing areas and 166 packaging facilities met the requirements and were approved. The approval rate of dossiers reached 82.3% and 66.7% respectively.
The addition of 567 codes is expected to expand the capacity to supply official durian to China, and at the same time create more conditions for localities and businesses to organize production, purchase and packaging. This result is meaningful in the context that the durian industry is entering the peak harvest season in the Central Highlands region.
Currently, there are still 283 planting area codes and 160 durian packaging facility codes waiting for GACC to consider and respond. In addition to durian, the Chinese side also approved 6 more coconut and chili planting area codes and 70 packaging facility codes for other Vietnamese agricultural products.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment requested GACC to continue to accelerate the evaluation process, especially for goods that are entering the main harvest and export season; and at the same time consider increasing the frequency of receiving the list of approval requests to shorten the waiting time.
GACC acknowledged this request but said that in the immediate future, it is still necessary to maintain the frequency of receiving applications every three months to have time to arrange human resources and resources to serve the evaluation.
In addition to the approved dossiers, 86 durian growing areas and 83 durian packaging facilities need to continue to overcome and improve for GACC to consider in the next step.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, the registration dossier must be complete, suitable to reality and meet the requirements of the importing country. Technical conditions must be implemented and maintained regularly, instead of just completing documents at the time of registration.
For cases that are required to be remedied, the planting area owner and packaging facility need to correct the cause, substantively remedy and provide sufficient evidence before sending back. Localities need to seriously rectify, conduct actual inspections and require completion of dossiers according to GACC's requirements to ensure the quality of the planting areas and packaging facilities proposed for approval.
Ensuring quality from the beginning not only helps shorten the evaluation time, increase the approval rate, but also reduces compliance costs, and limits the risk of codes being warned or suspended after being approved.
The Vietnamese side also informed about changes in the management system of planting area codes and packaging facilities according to Resolution No. 36/2026/NQ-CP dated July 31, 2026.
The new management method is based on data, traceability, risk classification and responsibility of each entity. Code data will be fully digitized and centrally managed.
