Zhu Lin said on Wednesday, “Recently received a report from the Commercial Counselor that the coronavirus was found on the packaging of durians in the Chinese market and was not found during transportation or at checkpoints. After that, the Ministry of Agriculture Cooperation and the Ministry of Commerce will cooperate with The Chinese authorities will discuss together to further resolve this issue. It is believed that this will not affect Thailand’s exports.”
Song De, Director of the Department of International Trade Promotion of Thailand, said that the Thai durian box contaminated with the Coronavirus was found in a small market and only one box was found in China. This does not affect the overall situation of Thai durian exports to China. This is because compared with Thailand’s exports of hundreds of thousands of boxes of durians to China, only a small portion of less than 1%.
“We believe that the incident will not affect the export of Thai durian, because China has not announced a suspension of imports of Thai durian or any exporter, and the impact on Chinese consumer confidence is unlikely. Because the problem occurs in a small area, China The people are not shocked by what happened. We are confident that this year’s durian export sales will continue to grow as usual. China, as an important export market, will maintain 80-90% of global exports unchanged.”
According to reports, the COVID-19 virus detected on the outer packaging of durians occurred in Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province. 30 boxes were randomly detected in a market, and all contacts were not infected after inspection. The customs confirmed that this was not detected at the import checkpoint, but was only found in the area. Therefore, China has not announced a suspension of imports of Thai durian or in any way suspended imports from the exporter.
In the past two years of the outbreak, Thailand’s durian exports to China have continued to vigorously. In 2020, China imported 575,000 tons of fresh durian from Thailand, with a total value of 69 billion baht. China has now become Thailand’s largest export market for fresh durians. Both in terms of import value and import volume, durians surpass Chilean cherries and rank first in imported fruits. Therefore, Thailand has become China’s largest fruit supplier.