From June 27 to 30, 2023, West Food Joint Stock Company (Westfood) officially set foot in the billion-population market by participating in the 18th China International Small and Medium Enterprises Fair (CISMEF 2023).
China has been Vietnam’s largest trading partner for the past 20 years. Vietnam is also China’s sixth-largest trading partner and China’s largest trading partner in ASEAN.
The signals for recovery and acceleration of Vietnam’s exports to China for the second half of 2023 are becoming increasingly clear. According to the General Department of Customs, as of the end of May 2023, the total trade turnover between Vietnam and China reached over 61 billion USD, of which exports from Vietnam to China reached 20.3 billion USD, down 6.8%; imports from China to Vietnam reached 41.1 billion USD. Various agricultural products and fruits just opened the door are products that the Chinese market has a high demand for, opening opportunities for Vietnamese businesses to gradually increase market share and have a firm foothold in this market.
This year, the CISMEF Fair has an area of about 80,000 square meters with the participation of 1,000 Chinese and international enterprises from over 20 countries and territories around the world.
Westfood Promotes its Products to Chinese Customers
Ms. Nguyen Thi Minh Nguyet, Chairwoman of the Board of Directors cum General Director of Westfood – one of Vietnam’s leading brands in the field of processing and exporting canned fruit products to the world, said that the structure of import-export goods between Vietnam and China has a very large complementarity, so the potential for cooperation, further expansion of trade and investment scale between the two sides is very high. This is a great opportunity for Westfood to promote trade in China – a market with a large scale of demand in the world.
From the second half of 2023, Westfood sets its main goal to grasp the market demand, tastes of Chinese customers, cooperate, connect, and promote exports, thereby contributing to promoting and enhancing the brand value of Vietnamese agricultural products internationally.
Westfood’s Products Introduced to the Chinese Market
Making its first entry to the Chinese market, Westfood made a big impression with its distinctive and diverse fresh and processed fruit products grown mostly in the Mekong Delta provinces, known as the largest fruit barn in Southeast Asia.
Westfood’s products are always diverse in type, meeting high standards for food safety of reputable international organizations such as FDA, IFS, KOSHER, BRC…; meeting the stringent food inspection requirements of difficult markets and are very popular in the US, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Netherlands, UK, France, Germany, Ireland,…
In addition to that, the company also has a great advantage of owning a large area of fruit raw material, notably the King MD2 pineapple material area, one of the sweetest and most uniformly sized pineapples in the world. In 2022, Westfood planted 140 hectares of MD2 pineapple, and it is expected to reach 1,000 hectares by 2028, of which the Global Gap standard area accounts for 50% of the total area. Besides King Md2 pineapple, the company also plans to develop raw material areas for its key products such as mango, lotus seeds, papaya, dragon fruit.
In the future, the company plans to start the construction of the Westfood factory in Hau Giang meeting European standards, with a land area of 70,000 m2, and expected to be operational in 2024. This will help Westfood increase capacity and produce more new high-quality standard products in addition to the existing ones.
With a far-reaching vision, understanding the potential and opportunities for development in the field of agricultural product exports, Westfood promises to become a bright spot in the journey of promoting Vietnamese fruits, an ambassador for the tropical fruit brand of Vietnam on the international stage.
