Apart from food security being a top state issue in China, rising incomes and a fast growing middle class have played an important role in China’s ever-increasing demand for high quality domestically produced and imported fresh fruits. According to official statistics, average annual urban wages in China increased by 156% in the period of 2009 to 2018 from 32,244 yuan ($4,569) to 82,461 yuan ($11,684). During the same period, the value of China’s fresh fruit imports grew by more than 487% from under $1.2 billion to over $6.9 billion. The Chinese government has facilitated this rapid growth in imports by expanding trade relationships with fruit exporting countries, including through the establishment of free trade agreements, and steadily increasing the numbers of fresh fruits permissible for import into China.
As the potential fruit consuming market in China grows extremely fast with preference to exotic fruits, there has been acknowledged decent market potential for Cambodian fruit export to China. The series of guidelines on step-by-step export processes of mango, banana, and longan from Cambodia to China was updated and published by GIZ SRECA in collaboration with the General Directorate of Agriculture (GDA) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) Cambodia. The guidelines have been produced to help facilitate the business coordination between Cambodia and China, with detailed analytics and specific instructions to support exporters from Cambodia in trading with China. Since 2017, SRECA project and its predecessor project have been working on product specific guidelines for its focus countries to train especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in neighbouring countries of China.
The product specific guidelines for Cambodia serve as manuals for GIZ SRECA and its partners to offer capacity building for local SMEs within the agricultural sector. Additionally, the project is now working on transferring the guidelines into e-learning formats to have a wider utilisation rate. The guidelines in Cambodia and other SRECA focus countries are always issued in the local language. The English translation serves as information for further international organisations supporting the development of the private sector within agricultural trade. In case of discrepancy between the original version and the translated text, the original version prevails.