The Australian Embassy in Hanoi on Monday published a press release to announce that the first batch of Vietnamese lychees had arrived in Australia four days earlier, and Ambassador Hugh Borrowman also congratulated Vietnamese lychee growers on the good news.

“I am very pleased that the Australian market is now open for Vietnamese lychees. The first consignments arrived in Melbourne on Friday and will soon be in Australian shopping baskets,” the ambassador said.

“It is terrific that Australian consumers will have the opportunity to try these delicious fruits during the 2015 season. I am sure that they will enjoy this high quality and flavorsome product - just like Vietnamese consumers enjoy eating Australian fruits such as table grapes, citrus and cherries” he said.

“The finalization of the import conditions is the culmination of a great deal of work by the Vietnamese Plant Protection Department, Vietnamese industry and the Australian Department of Agriculture,” he added.

Vietnamese lychees will help fuel market demand for the fruit in Australia, as they are produced in the opposite season to Australian lychees, the embassy said.

On May 11, the Australian Department of Agriculture gave the green light for irradiation-treated lychees from Vietnam to be exported to the country, and it notified Australian importers about the approval to begin importing the fruit the same day, according to news website abc.net.au.

The Vietnamese fruit, which has also been exported to other foreign markets like France and the U.S., has received positive feedback from consumers there.

Lychees imported from the northern Vietnamese province of Bac Giang have sold well in supermarkets in Paris and Toulouse under the France-based Thanh Binh Jeune Import-Export Company label, the representative of the firm said.

The first batch of lychees, a 600-kilogram shipment to France on June 4, sold out within three days, and the second batch has also been popular, Ngo Minh Duong, general director of Thanh Binh Jeune, told the Vietnam News Agency.

The company plans to import two additional batches of lychees this month to meet market demand, he added.

High-quality Vietnamese lychees have also met the standards of the Canadian market, which are set by the Canadian Food Investigation Agency, according to Manley Sales Company, which imported the first batch of Vietnamese lychees to Canada on June 10.

The company plans to distribute Vietnamese lychees across the country, from British Columbia on the west coast to Quebec on the east coast, within a week, the company’s representative told the Vietnam News Agency.

It has taken Vietnam over five years to adopt standardized cultivation processes and satisfy quarantine requirements so that the Vietnamese fruit can be imported into the U.S. and Australia, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh told local media at a press meeting on June 1.

The first batch of Vietnamese lychees sent to the two markets are a significant step forward as the fruit has been awarded phytosanitary certificates to enter two of the strictest markets in the world, he added.

After the call of the Vietnam Tourism Association (VITA) to boost consumption of fruits locally, many hotels in big cities have begun to offer lychees to their guests.

Nguyen Huu Tho, chairman of the VITA, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that after his association’s call for enterprises in the tourism sector to help consume local seasonal fruits, the VITA has received a lot of positive feedback.

Around 30 kilograms of fruit is being arranged in the shape of towers at the dining area of the Rex Hotel in downtown Ho Chi Minh City, as well as on display in traditional baskets around the area.

Nguyen Hong Quang, chief chef of the hotel, told Tuoi Tre that foreign guests often enjoy Vietnamese fruits.

Therefore, the hotel uses many local fruits to serve guests during breakfast, most of which are seasonal fruits, Quang said.

Foreign fruits like apples and grapes, on the contrary, are mainly used for decoration, and most foreign guests do not eat them with meals, he added.

The hotel estimates its monthly consumption is around 180-200 kilograms of all kinds of domestic fruit.

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