Vietnam is leveraging cherry supplies from emerging greenhouses of China that are offering importers 50% the international price.
Ho Chi Minh City’s specialty fruit vendor Thanh Loan told VNExpress on May 18, 2025 of prices hugging 0.5 million dong ($19.26) a kg.
Loan purchased 2 kg of China’s cherries at almost 1.2 million dong ($46.22), the same price for 1 kg of the American equivalents.
Chemical-free Cultivation
It is not just affordability that is motivating traders to order cross-border cherries but the clean cultivation method, too.
Despite their greenhouse setting, the fruits grow almost organically without chemicals or synthetic fertilizers.
The outcome is sweet, crispy cherries similar to Australia’s, only that these preservative-free fruits need eating within a week.
Geographical proximity with China nevertheless saves the perishability aspect for the airborne cherries arrive 24 to 48 hours after packing.
But China, which supplants home production with massive imports from Chile, is not having all its supplies out. This is in turn making Vietnam’s importers only manage a limited number of crates per shipment.
Greenhouse Cherry Capital
Imports would be negligible if Shandong Province near eastern China’s Yellow Sea did not develop controlled indoor cultivation.
Yantai metropolis on the Yellow Sea pioneered greenhouse cherry farming, a triumphant venture that has made exports possible.
Locally, Shandong’s greenhouse cherries cost 45 yuan ($6.24) a kg for the smallest and 55 yuan ($7.62) for the largest.
In contrast, northeastern China’s Dalian province in early 2025 retailed greenhouse cherries at 130 yuan ($18.02) a kilo.
This illustrates that the currently small area of greenhouse cherries in China sometimes makes them command haphazard prices.
With cultivation improvements and supply rebounds, the China cherry largesse is however telling, particularly in Vietnam’s import prices. To learn more about the cherry trade between the two nations, skim the below statistics.
Vietnam’s China Cherry Import Statistics
Vietnam imports small quantities of mainly greenhouse cherries from China’s eastern province of Shandong. By May 2025, this province was representing 25% of the national cherry output in China. With 50,000 acres under the crop, Shandong produces 100,000 tonnes of cherries per year. In contrast, the total area under conventional- and greenhouse-cultivated cherries in China clocks some 1.5 million acres.
Is China an attractive cherry origin prospect for Vietnam?
Low cost and easy logistics are the leading lures for Vietnam’s ordering cherries from China. This is relevant because 29% of the retail price of cherries in Vietnam owes to logistics. Logistical costs often raise the rates for U.S.-imported fruits to as much as $45 a kg. China’s cherries, on the other hand, cost half that price at approximately $19.26 a kg, as of May 2025. This is because they are available by air 24 to 48 hours after the harvest, eliminating long-term preservation expenses.
Is China a major cherry import origin for Vietnam?
In 2023, Vietnam ordered about $40 million in cherries, with China not among the chief import sources. According to the World Bank, the United States provided over 4,138 tonnes back in 2021, ahead of Australia’s 2,279 tonnes (t). This was around 75% of all in-bound cherry trade by Vietnam. New Zealand (1, 281 t) and Canada (621.3 t) followed, while Chile (381.5 t) climaxed the top 5.