The collaborative efforts of the Tainan City Government, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to promote local agricultural product exports have yielded satisfactory results once more. The Ministry of Agriculture recently announced the EU has officially opened the European market to Taiwan’s mangos and guavas. This development shows that these fruits passed quarantine inspections for fruit fly hosts and are now permitted entry into the new market. In addition to sharing the challenging process of gaining market access, Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che expressed gratitude to the central government agencies for their active cooperation with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency (APHIA) in making this achievement possible.
Premier Cho Jung-tai shared this exciting news during his inspection of water conservancy facilities in Tainan on June 14. He said that Taiwanese mangoes are already available in markets such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. Now, as Taiwan’s mangoes and guavas have passed the stringent inspection standards of the European Union, these fruits will soon be available to consumers across the EU as well.
According to Mayor Huang, the Tainan City Government has been proactively promoting local agricultural products in overseas markets. He recalled an incident from his visit to a Tainan agricultural product promotion event in the Netherlands in September 2024, where he encountered significant challenges bringing even a small number of samples into the country due to strict EU quarantine regulations. These stringent requirements have also posed difficulties for European vendors interested in importing fresh produce from Tainan. The Tainan City Government promptly contacted Taiwan’s Ministry of Agriculture, requesting that our APHIA collaborate with the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) to clarify quarantine procedures for imported produce. Taiwanese authorities also provided information on the nation’s systematic pest control measures, such as mango vapor heat treatment and guava cold treatment quarantine, which ultimately helped to gain the trust of EU regulators.
The Tainan City Government has long cooperated with the Ministry of Agriculture in upgrading produce quarantine technology. The Yujing Vapor Heat Treatment Plant completed its equipment renewal last year and now boasts the highest vapor heat treatment capacity in Taiwan. The treatment effectively exterminates oriental fruit flies, significantly improving the quarantine clearance rate for exported produce. In addition, with the adoption of cold treatment quarantine technology for guavas, Tainan’s guavas have been exported to the United States since 2019, making Tainan the first region in Taiwan to export container shipments of guava. The recent opening of the EU market is expected to bring even greater benefits to local producers.