Hun Ty gunning to be first fresh mango exporter to China
Hun Ty gunning to be first fresh mango exporter to China
Hun Ty CO LTD plans to be the first company to directly export fresh mangoes to China and do its part in filling the 500,000 tonne annual quota to the country.
In June this year, Cambodia and China officially signed an agreement to allow for the export of fresh mangoes in the hopes of boosting domestic agricultural exports to the world’s most populous nation.
Forty-eight companies, plantation owners and farming communities have applied to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to export fresh mangoes to China, its data show.
Hun Ty said it will be ready to ship between 1,500 and 8,400 tonnes of fresh mangoes in 50-300 containers once its agro-industry and economic zone under construction along National Road 4 is completed in the near future, as reported by the ministry on December 4.
The ministry said the company shipped 29.85 tonnes on December 1, 28.8 tonnes on December 2 and an undisclosed amount on December 4 to China via Vietnam in trial runs.
After recently installing industrial steaming equipment and machinery for pest control, the company said it started to move the fruit from the plantation to sterilise and package.
It said: “The company hopes that the cleaning and packaging experience gained over the last three days will help it speed up future fresh mangoes exports from Cambodia to the Chinese market.”
Minister Veng Sakhon told The Post late last month that Hun Ty is investing heavily in packaging, cleaning and processing agricultural products for export to international markets.
The company is setting up a special economic zone in Koh Kong province to process Cambodian agricultural products, he said, noting that it has entered into numerous contract farming agreements with communities and associations across the Kingdom to supply its facilities.
“Hun Ty is a company with big ambitions to export agricultural products to international markets,” he said.
The company was set up in 2017 by Antony Wang, whom Sakhon identified as an investor hailing from mainland China.
He said the firm has extensive operations in the Kingdom related to processing, packaging and export, and boasts large warehouses and cold-storage units.
Cambodia Chamber of Commerce vice-president Lim Heng told The Post on December 6 that prior mango exports to China were in the form of dehydrated products.
With a first export firmly on the cards, he stressed that this signals that Cambodian fresh mangoes are safe and hygienic enough to meet the demands of the Chinese.
“This is another new positive sign that Cambodian fresh mangoes are headed for world’s most demanding markets . . . Exports now not only help expand the market for farmers, but also represent an opportunity to attract investment to mango cultivation in Cambodia,” Heng said.
As of November 17, there were four companies building packaging facilities equipped with phytosanitary sanitary equipment.
Bamin Agriculture Hi-Tech Development Co is installing industrial steaming equipment, which is scheduled to be completed by year’s end.
Boeung Ket Planting and Industrial Co Ltd and another of Wang’s ventures, Al Jazeelan Food Pte Ltd, will opt for hot-water phytosanitary equipment and are on track for completion this month.
Long Wo Agriculture (Cambodia) Co Ltd is transporting materials from China to build a warehouse, which is scheduled to be completed early next year.
According to Shanghai-based agricultural market news portal guojiguoshu.com, the cost of steam treatment is much higher than that of hot-water treatment. Chinese regulatory approval of the latter would help alleviate the economic burden on mango producers and exporters based in the Kingdom.
The Kingdom has 124,319ha of mango plantations, of which 91,398ha are harvested with an average yield of 1,448,677 tonnes per each of the year’s two seasons, the General Directorate of Agriculture reported. This means that each hectare produces around 15.85 tonnes per season or 31.70 per year.
