China imported a record US$6.99 billion worth of durians in 2024 as Vietnam and Malaysia compete with Thailand for shares of the world’s largest durian market.

This marked a 4.1% increase in value from 2023 while import volume rose 9.4% to 15.6 billion kilograms (15.6 million tons) in 2024, the South China Morning Post reported.

Of those, Thailand accounted for $4 billion, down 12% year-on-year. It remained the top supplier, though its share of the market fell to 57% from 68% in 2023 due to quality concerns stemming from excessive reliance on industrial plantations and reduced production caused by extreme heat.

It has also faced fierce competition from the second-largest supplier, Vietnam, whose shipments to China rose 37.56% to $2.9 billion last year. Vietnam held a roughly 41.5% market share, up from 33% in 2023.

Malaysia, which got the green light to export fresh durians to China last June and shipped its first batch in August, followed with $5.7 million.

Its Agriculture and Food Security Minister, Datuk Seri Mohamad Sabu, said fresh durians from Malaysia are considered premium, fetching higher prices than imports from other Southeast Asian suppliers, as reported by Malaysian newspaper The Star.

The Philippines, the other country to ship fresh durians to China, exported $32.5 million worth of the fruit last year, up 144.4% from 2023.

As China continues to ramp up imports, several countries are looking to join the market.

Indonesia has been working to gain approval for shipping fresh durians directly to China, a trade that officials anticipate could eventually reach 128.7 trillion rupiah ($7.88 billion).

Last month, the country’s Coordinating Minister for Food Affairs, Zulkifli Hasan, said it was making efforts to expedite the process.

Laos, with its emerging durian industry, is also striving to capture a portion of the Chinese durian market.

Bounchanh Kombounyasith, director general of Laos' Department of Agriculture, said Lao durians would soon be exported to China as market access documents were being prepared, according to a report from a state-owned Chinese newspaper last September.

Tao Jian, a 54-year-old Chinese entrepreneur and owner of Jinguo, a company cultivating 50,000 durian trees on the Bolaven Plateau in southern Laos, said the region’s fertile soil is ideal for durian farming.

He noted that a hybrid variety, combining Malaysian and local cultivars, has been successfully developed, resulting in high-quality durians.

"I believe Laos will soon become the world's fourth-largest durian producer, after Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia," he told Nikkei Asia.

Nonetheless, suppliers also face challenges as they seek to boost exports to China. Concerns about quality have emerged, with some shipments to the market rejected last year for containing excessive cadmium, a heavy metal.

Recently, China has tightened import requirements, now requiring testing for Basic Yellow 2, after the substance was detected in some shipments from Thailand late last year.

The abrupt shift in import standards caught exporters from Thailand and Vietnam off guard, leaving them unable to adjust in time and causing delays or rejections of durian shipments.

Major durian producers in Southeast Asia are also cautious about the risk of oversupply, particularly as more nations rush to tap into China’s durian demand.

Terry Lin, sales director at Agrionex, a Malaysia-based agricultural technology provider, said: "We are currently in the golden era of durian in China, but the momentum may taper off and it may be a silver era in the coming five years, when there can be an oversupply, especially since fresh fruits have short shelf life."

Source: VnExpress