KUALA TERENGGANU: The Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority (Fama) is confident of improving the quality and output of Musang King durians to meet the demand from China.
Its chairman, Ishak Ismail said to meet the target, Fama had drawn up various strategies including assisting durian farmers in developing their farms and building durian processing centres.
He told reporters at the launch of the Agriculture and Agro-Industry Ministry’s Durian Sale and Meet-Customers Day event held at the Fama office here, today, that the five-year plan was to meet 10% of the demand from China for the “King of Fruits” .
Currently, he said, Malaysia was only able to meet 1% of the demand from China with an export value of RM9.45 million last year.
“In June this year, Malaysia obtained the permission to export frozen durians in whole fruit form to China. Previously, we could only export durians in clove and pulp form.
“With this new development, we expect to increase the durian export to China to at least 30% by the year-end,“ he said.
Currently, Malaysia’s durian products have found markets in seven cities in China, namely Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu, Nanning, Chongqing and Guangzhou.
Ishak said so far, there were 31 durian processing facilities in Malaysia which had obtained the permit to export frozen durian in the form of cloves and pulp, and five companies exporting frozen whole fruits to China.
“We will assist the durian producers in adhering to the standards set by Malaysian durian-importing countries ... what is important is to take care of the durian quality as Malaysian durians are recognised as the best by many foreign countries,” he added. — Bernama
