Vietnam will stop importing fruit from Australia from next year because of insect issues, an official from the Plant Protection Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development confirmed Tuesday.

The department will also stop granting plant quarantine certificates for Australian fruit from January 1, 2015, according to department head Nguyen Xuan Hong.

Hong attributed the import ban to the fact that fruits in Australia have been hit by Mediterranean Sea fruit flies, which could spread to Vietnam via the imports.

The Mediterranean Sea fruit fly is a small, black-and-white banded, two-winged fly that implants eggs that hatch into maggots within ripening fruit.

The flies pose no harm to human health, but it is disastrous to plants as they can implant eggs into all kinds of fruit, Hong explained.

Australia is among the top five largest fruit exporters to Vietnam, besides China, the U.S., New Zealand, and South Africa.

Vietnam mostly imports Australian cherries, apples, oranges, and grapes.

The Southeast Asian country purchased more than 2,000 tons of fruit from Australia in the first ten months of this year, according to the agriculture ministry.

News about Vietnam’s decision to block Australian fruit shipments emerged as early as November as Vietnamese importers began informing their Australian partners that they will not be permitted to import any fresh fruit from Australia.

Australian broadcaster ABC News reported on November 4 that the country’s Department of Agriculture had confirmed that Vietnam “raised concerns with Australia's fruit fly management systems and is considering suspending trade in Australian fruit.”

The Vietnamese market is worth US$40 million to Australia’s fruit exporting sector, according to ABC News.

It is unclear whether the absence of Australian fruits will affect the Vietnamese fruit market, especially when the Lunar New Year, or Tet, approaches.

An attendant of a fruit store in Hanoi told Giao Thong Van Tai (Transport) newspaper that Vietnamese consumers may not be able to enjoy cherries next spring due to the import ban.

“Only Australian cherries are in harvest time now, while those from Canada and the U.S. are only available in the summer and fall,” she said.

Nguyen Thai Dung, deputy general director of Big C, said the supermarket chain imports a large amount of Australian fruit but has yet to be informed of the import ban.

“Big C will consider importing pears, oranges and apples from alternative markets such as Japan, New Zealand and the U.S.,” he told the ministry-run newspaper.

Australian fruits are competitive with similar imports in Vietnam thanks to the close geographical proximity between the two countries.

“The ban on Australian fruit imports may affect the fruit market during Tet,” Dung said.

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