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RI $8b durian export bid to China faces thorny challenges
Indonesia has hardly exported any durian to China for decades, according to UN Comtrade data. Most of China’s durians instead come from Thailand, which contributes 94 percent of worldwide shipments, according to an FAO report.
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Stinky: A durian, which sells for between Rp 19,500 (US$1.40) and Rp 100,000 is pictured on Wednesday at a stall in Medan, North Sumatra. (AFP/Rahmad Suryadi)
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ndonesia is seeking to capture a significant share of China’s exploding demand for durian which is worth billions of dollars, but experts say the country is not in good shape to compete with its more established neighbors.
Durian, hailed by enthusiasts as the “king of fruit”, has become a focal point in diplomatic engagements between China and Southeast Asian countries as Beijing pledged to import more fruit from the region to cement its influence amid an intensifying rivalry with the United States in the bloc.
Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said Indonesia could potentially earn up to US$8 billion by exporting durians to China, banking on a demand surge in the country.
Beijing imported $6.7 billion worth of durian last year, a jump of 318 percent from 2019, United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade) data shows.
At the same time, Beijing has been crowned the largest importer of durian, contributing to 95 percent of the world’s imports, equivalent to 740,000 tonnes between 2020 and 2022, according to a UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report in 2023.
After his visit to China at the end of June, Luhut mentioned plans to collaborate with China to boost Indonesia’s capacity to export the pungent fruit, targeting existing durian producing regions, from Central Sulawesi to food estates in Fakfak, West Papua, to make them large-scale durian plantations.
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