On April 15, in Beijing (China), within the framework of the State visit of General Secretary and President To Lam to China, the Minister of Agriculture and Environment of Vietnam and the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC) officially signed a Protocol on plant quarantine requirements for grapefruit and lemon fruits exported from Vietnam to China.
The signing of the Protocol is the result of a methodical technical negotiation process, lasting from 2019 between specialized agencies of the two countries in the field of plant protection and quarantine.
This result not only reflects the close coordination efforts and high sense of responsibility in harmonizing technical requirements, but also demonstrates the proactiveness of the two sides in selecting and prioritizing market opening for products with potential and advantages. In the context of Vietnam-China agricultural cooperation being constantly strengthened and expanded, the signing of the Protocol on grapefruit and lemon continues to affirm the trend of opening markets in an official, transparent, and international standards-compliant direction, while also demonstrating the inheritance and increasingly completeness of the bilateral cooperation mechanism.
According to the signed Protocol, all lemon and grapefruit growing areas and packaging facilities exported to the Chinese market must be registered with the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment and must be approved by the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment and GACC.
Growing areas and packaging facilities must have measures to control harmful organisms. In which, growing areas must apply Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), integrated pest management (IPM), must carry grapefruit fruit in bulk at least 60 days before harvesting; set fruit fly traps...
Packaging facilities, in addition to having a hard, clean base, processing, treatment, preservation areas and separate functional areas, the packaging process, grapefruit and lemon must be selected, classified and cleaned to remove diseased fruit, contaminated with harmful organisms, rotten or deformed; and at the same time remove branches, leaves, vegetable residues and soil.
Pomelo and lemon are two of the agricultural products with outstanding advantages of Vietnam. In which, the pomelo area, reaching about 106 thousand hectares, belongs to the group of countries with large-scale pomelo production in the world, with many concentrated and large-scale production areas.
In addition to traditional growing areas, the area of grapefruit and lemon continues to expand in recent years in many localities such as Hanoi, Phu Tho, Tuyen Quang, Vinh Long, Dong Nai, Dong Thap... along with the production of specialty grapefruit varieties such as Dien grapefruit, Phuc Trach grapefruit, Doan Hung grapefruit, Nam Roi grapefruit, Da Xanh grapefruit,... with high yield, good quality and suitable for the market, contributing to improving economic efficiency for producers.
China is identified as an important market with great potential for Vietnamese fruit products, with large consumption scale and increasing demand. Based on the success of many agricultural products that have been officially exported to this market, grapefruit and lemon continue to be identified as products with great potential, suitable for consumer demand and market trends, and increasingly favored by Chinese consumers. With the advantages of quality and supply capacity, these two items are expected to gradually expand market share, affirm their position and make positive contributions to the growth of Vietnam's agricultural exports.
The signing of the Protocol not only opens up opportunities to effectively exploit the production potential of grapefruit and lemon products, but also contributes to completing the legal corridor for official exports, improving consumption efficiency, increasing income for producers and increasing added value of the industry.
At the same time, this is a driving force to promote the reorganization of production towards standardization, improving quality, strictly controlling pests and traceability, meeting the increasing requirements of international agricultural trade. The technical negotiation efforts between the two sides not only bring results for these two items alone but also open up opportunities to expand international market access for other potential agricultural products of Vietnam, contributing to diversifying export markets and enhancing the position of Vietnamese agricultural products in the international arena.
In the coming time, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment (Department of Crop Production and Plant Protection) will continue to closely coordinate with localities, associations, businesses and producers to organize the effective implementation of the Protocol, including: organizing training to disseminate the provisions of the Protocol; promoting the construction and standardization of growing areas that meet the technical requirements of the signed Protocol, sending it to the Chinese side for approval of growing areas and packaging facilities that meet technical conditions; strengthening inspection of pomelo and lemon growing areas and packaging facilities to ensure full compliance with the regulations of the Chinese side to build a stable market with a long-term foothold in the Chinese market. At the same time, it serves as a basis for developing and expanding the export market for Vietnamese pomelo and lemon.
Previously, on April 10, at the Huu Nghi international border gate (Lang Son), the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment also allowed the export to China of the first batch of durian applying the Green Channel process, based on a chain-wide origin tracing system.
The event is within the framework of the Pilot Plan for tracing the origin of durian fruits according to Decision No. 5272/QD-BNNMT signed on December 13, 2025 by the Minister of Agriculture and Environment. Unlike traditional methods, the Green Channel process allows testing from soil sampling at the planting garden to fresh fruits after harvesting and processing, attaching traceability stamps to trees and sticking stamps on fruits during harvesting; plant quarantine and issuing certificates of origin (C/O) right in the locality where the garden is planted. This not only helps ensure the best fresh fruit quality but also maximizes customs clearance time at border gates, minimizing the risk of goods congestion.
