India is a populous market, with people having demand for many types of agricultural products. However, in order for cooperatives and small businesses to increase their export proportion to this country, which is known as the “market of the future”, calculating to ensure goods when exporting far away is also one of the issues of concern.

Mr. Tran Dinh Trung, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Thuan Tien Thanh Long Cooperative (Binh Thuan), said that Indians are mainly vegetarians, and the demand for fruits and vegetables is high, not only for food but also for religious ceremonies. These are opportunities for the cooperative to access this market.

Seize the opportunity

In particular, although many countries have grown dragon fruit such as China, Cambodia, etc., Vietnamese dragon fruit is still highly appreciated by Indian customers for its quality. Recently, many Indian delegations have learned about Thuan Tien Cooperative through national fairs and fairs abroad, from which they have visited and directly learned about the growing and packaging areas of Thuan Tien Cooperative and signed export contracts.

However, according to Mr. Tran Dinh Trung, according to calculations, India's population is about 1.4 billion people. India's demand for dragon fruit is nearly 50 million tons/year. However, in reality, the amount of dragon fruit exported by cooperatives and enterprises to India is still modest due partly to the remote geographical location.

Indian customers visit the dragon fruit growing area and processing facility of Thuan Tien Cooperative.

Sharing at the seminar "Vietnamese agricultural products in the Indian market", Mr. Chi Anh, founder and CEO of Ago Import-Export Company Limited, said that in the process of exporting dragon fruit to India, businesses also encountered some objective factors that caused the containers of goods to be 'delayed'. While dragon fruit is a soft fruit, it is easy for the "health" to be reduced when it reaches customers.

It can be seen that one of the problems that cooperatives and businesses are facing when exporting agricultural products to India is the geographical distance between the two countries is quite far. This makes the cost of transporting goods higher than exporting to some countries in the region. Especially at times when there is a shortage of containers, it will push up the cost, reducing the competitiveness of Vietnamese agricultural products.

One of the figures given by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is that Vietnam and India both have strengths in agriculture, the export of agricultural, forestry and fishery products of the two countries is equivalent, over 53 billion USD/year. However, agricultural import and export between the two countries is still not large.

Specifically, in 2023, Vietnam's agricultural exports to India remained modest at 507 million USD, accounting for about 1.5% of India's total agricultural import turnover.

This is considered not commensurate with Vietnam's potential and strengths and has not met the demand for agricultural products and goods of a country with a large population like India.

Currently, in addition to dragon fruit, India also has a large demand for importing other agricultural products such as pepper, coffee, fresh fruit, cashew nuts, tea, vegetable oil, juice, sweet potatoes, passion fruit, etc.

Many cooperatives and businesses believe that approaching Indian customers and partners is still very difficult because they do not know how to search, meet, and establish relationships. In addition, understanding the quality standards of this market is not really convenient and popular with cooperatives.

Proactive and flexible adaptation

In fact, experts say that the quality standards for exporting agricultural products to India are not as strict as the current European or Chinese markets.

However, Mr. Chi Anh said that each market has different customers. For example, if supplying to 5-star hotels and restaurants in India, the quality of agricultural products is almost absolute with clear certification processes. However, when Vietnamese agricultural products are supplied to ordinary customers, specifically serving the common people, the quality may be lower, along with lower income.

In addition, although the demand for importing some items such as turmeric, cinnamon, pepper, dragon fruit, vegetables, etc. from India is large, cooperatives and enterprises need to determine that when exporting products, they must be competitive with agricultural products from other countries. That is, even though they are dragon fruits, they must choose dragon fruits with different harvest times or agricultural products with higher flavors and quality than agricultural products of the same type.

In particular, to save costs, cooperative enterprises can participate in online fairs or send information about their cooperatives and products at agricultural fairs, trade promotion conferences or approach Indian customers through social networks.

Even Thuan Tien Cooperative and Ago Company have been able to approach Indian customers and have long-term cooperation contracts thanks to posting information about the production unit and products at international fairs, after which customers proactively contact and come directly to Vietnam to learn more and sign contracts.

'Indians also use social networks to work and connect with trade quite a lot. The important thing is how the cooperative approaches customers? What are the core values ​​of the cooperative, whether it is oriented towards sustainable production or not,' said the founder and CEO of Ago Import-Export Company Limited.

Regarding how to save costs for exporting to India, Mr. Rocky Ngoc Thach, CEO of Smart Link Logistics, said that India is considered a piece of cake that many international businesses are "looking at" and want to learn about and invest in to make a profit. India is also known as the market of the future because of the large number of businesses and high demand for business cooperation, so many shipping lines are currently operating trips here. On average, there are about 47 direct trains from Vietnam to India every week.

This CEO also believes that, in addition to ensuring the quality of agricultural products, exporting units also need to pay attention to brand building. This will help exporting units not have to chase after customers but also attract new sources of customers, thereby increasing revenue.

In particular, India is a large market with many businesses, so the challenge is that exporting units must select customers in a way that suits their needs. In particular, it is necessary to anticipate difficulties in transportation to have the most appropriate and safest handling and preservation plans.

Source: VnBusiness