Improving market access to China for Australian summerfruit (SF11003)

This is a final research report from Hort Innovation’s historical archives. Please note that as these reports may date back as far as the 1990s, the content and recommendations within them may be superseded by more recent research.

What was it all about?

The Australian Summerfruit Industry believed that without a strong export process the domestic market would suffer from an oversupply and result in market failure at a very great level. It was essential in going forward that the Summerfruit Industry had a strong domestic market, a strong export market and adequate value-adding opportunities. If any one of these segments was weak then the total industry was vulnerable. With this in mind one of the major focuses of the Industry was to strengthen exports to South East Asia.

Australian Summefruit was widely sought after within the overseas markets in South East Asia. To ensure that new markets opened and current markets at the time expanded, it was essential that the industry and individual producers and exporters regularly visited these markets and communicated with importers, wholesalers and consumers.

Summerfruit Australia Limited had been pro-active in the reopening of the markets in Taiwan and was working hard to achieve market access in China. To ensure success in both of these markets the Summerfruit industry had embarked on a major program of participating in trade Shows and Expos which exposed the importers, wholesalers and consumers to the Australian Industry and the products available at the time.

Great interest from mainland China traders and other regional traders was evident at Fruit Logistica in Hong Kong and the Summerfruit presence added further in strengthening the industry’s desire to have the authorities grant official market access.

In addition to attending and participating at Asia Fruit Logistica representatives of Summerfruit Australia Limited attended and participated in the Fruit and Vegetable Expo in Shanghai, China and the Fruit and Vegetable Fair in Nanning, China during October and November 2011. In addition representatives made a short visit to Taiwan to reinforce the availability of stonefruit to importers and wholesalers. Through these events the Summerfruit industry had made in excess of 1,000 valuable contacts that assisted the industry expanding the sale of stonefruit in the coming years.

The Australian Summerfruit Industry was hopeful at the time that the China market would open to Australian stonefruit during 2013. This was because of the hard work undertaken by the industry and the organisation over the four years previous.