ASEAN's fresh fruits enrich China's fruit platter

By Xue Lingqiao

(ECNS) -- With the arrival of early summer, major farmers' markets and street-side fruit shops in Nanning, South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, are stocked ASEAN fruits such as durian and mangosteen with affordable prices, igniting consumer enthusiasm.

A market visit reveals that the popular Monthong durian from Thailand is currently selling for 20 to 25 yuan per catty, while mangosteen is priced at 13 to 16 yuan per catty.

Not far away is Vietnam and more away is the vast ASEAN region. Guangxi's uniquely advantageous location makes it a key gateway for ASEAN fruits entering China. 

In recent years, Thai fragrant coconuts, Malaysian Musang King durian, and Vietnamese lychee have successively come into harvest. Large quantities of fresh ASEAN fruits travel across mountains and seas through Guangxi border ports for swift entry, eventually reaching the dinner tables of hundreds of millions of Chinese families. 

It is estimated that for every two imported durians in China, one passes through Guangxi customs.

"Currently, the construction of the China–ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 is accelerating, and the dividends of RCEP continue to be released. As the 'golden passage' for ASEAN fruits entering China, Guangxi has seen particularly strong growth and impressive results in fruit trade," said Zhu Yanling, an official with the department of commerce of the autonomous region. 

In 2025, the import value of ASEAN fruits through Guangxi border ports exceeded 40 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20%, accounting for more than one-third of the national total.

Leveraging nine fruit-specific policies supported by China's General Administration of Customs, Guangxi has imported 86 varieties of ASEAN fruits via its border ports, making it one of the provinces with the widest range of imported fruit varieties in China. From January to May this year, Guangxi ports imported 1.25 million tons of ASEAN fruits, up 13.5% year-on-year; the value reached 16.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 40.1%.

Today, fresh fruits picked by Thai fruit farmers in the early morning are transported by cross-border refrigerated trucks, cleared through Guangxi's Youyiguan Port in only15 seconds, and can reach Chinese consumers' tables in as short as 48 hours. This speedy import and transport scenario is made possible by Guangxi's continuous efforts to build an efficient and convenient fruit import system. 

Meanwhile, Guangxi's Nanning Customs has built world-class testing laboratories for imported fruits such as durian at key ports including Qinzhou, Pingxiang, and Dongxing. 

By upgrading technical support capabilities in line with actual fruit trade needs, the daily fruit testing capacity across the customs district exceeds 500 samples, enabling "port-level inspection and rapid testing" for imported fruits, ensuring both safety and efficiency. 

In terms of cold-chain logistics, Guangxi is accelerating the construction of a three-tier cold-chain network, with regular cold-chain direct shipping routes and dedicated cold-chain trains operating under the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor.

In the distribution phase, relying on platforms such as the China–ASEAN (Chongzuo) Fruit Trading Center, the Beibu Gulf International Cold Chain Base, and the Nanning Agricultural Products Trading Center, Pingxiang and Chongzuo have built border fruit distribution markets that are among the largest in the country. This enables ASEAN fruits to be sorted and distributed upon landing, driving the transformation of ports from mere transit points to national-level distribution hubs.