Japanese grapes can't enter Vietnam, yet Shine Muscat ripened on a hillside in Ha Tinh

On a hillside in Ha Tinh province, central Vietnam, the Japanese-born grape 'Shine Muscat' has entered its second harvest season. It is handled by Nguyen The Hoang, a farmer born in the 1990s. His motive for taking up cultivation was said to be only the memory of tasting Japanese grapes that had been on a supermarket shelf. This 2,000-㎡ plot, which VietnamNet reported on 26 July 2026, contains a story that is not just an overseas feel-good tale for Japanese produce procurement. Japanese grapes still cannot be commercially exported to Vietnam, while the fruit of a Japanese variety is taking root on local hills first.

What happened on a 2,000-㎡ hill

The plot is in Thanh Binh village, Mai Hoa commune, Ha Tinh province. Mr. Hoang opened the orchard in late April 2024, with an investment of about 200 million VND (at 1 yen = about 162 VND, about 1.23 million yen; rate as of July 2026). He stretched a rain shelter, raised the ridges to secure drainage, and adjusted irrigation and fertilization by growth stage. He learned the cultivation technique from a grape orchard in Ninh Thuan province in the south. Vietnam's grape producing area is Ninh Thuan, and he transferred the dry-region technique accumulated there to the rainy central hills.

The first harvest in mid-2025 was about 100 kg. This season he expects about 200 kg. The shipping price is 200,000 VND per kg (about 1,230 yen). The cropping is two crops a year, with harvest seasons in March–July and September–December. Compared with growing mandarins or pomelo on the same hillside, income is 3 to 4 times higher, Mr. Hoang explains. The sales channel takes the form of direct sales by reservation, combined with on-site picking and photo-taking by visitors.

Japanese grapes cannot enter Vietnam in the first place

Here let us confirm the premise. In the list of export-clearance requests the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries publishes (as of 10 July 2026), grapes for Vietnam remain with a request filed in October 2020 and have not reached the clearance or condition-change column. JETRO's export guide (as of the July 2025 survey) likewise lists, as Japanese fruit for which bilateral conditions are in place for Vietnam, only apples, Japanese pears, and satsuma mandarins. Apples were cleared in September 2015, and satsuma mandarins in October 2021 on the condition of production in areas free of citrus fruit fly. Quarantine conditions are not fixed, and there are scenes where Vietnamese producing areas move ahead of Japan's regulatory changes (Vietnamese producing areas get ahead of Japan's 7 new regulations, bringing forward preparations for the summer Japan sales battle）。

In other words, there is, institutionally, almost no possibility that the 'Japanese grapes' Mr. Hoang ate at a supermarket were Japanese produce formally imported as cargo. It is natural to think of either a traveler's carried item or produce from a third country growing a Japanese variety. In February 2026 Yamanashi Prefecture released a Vietnamese-language PR video with a Vietnam-based YouTuber, positioning Vietnam as a priority market, Thanh Nien reported. A move to grow demand while awaiting clearance, and a move in which the variety localizes first, are advancing simultaneously in the same market.

In numbers, this plot is not yet a 'producing area'

A scale of about 200 kg a year does not even reach the weekly sales of a single Japanese mass-retail store. It is not at the stage to list as a supply candidate. What still makes it worth recording is that what this plot shows is not volume but the variety's adaptability. The central hills carry conditions absent in Japan's main producing areas—concentrated downpours in the rainy season and high heat and humidity. That it set fruit there, and that yield doubled in the second crop, can be read as an early signal of producing-area formation.

The China and South Korea areas placed at the end of the table are better read not as reference values but as a warning. Because variety registration had not been completed overseas, Japan had no legal means to stop the cultivation that spread.

How the local and Japanese sides receive it

Tran Manh Hung, chairman of the Mai Hoa commune Farmers' Association, told VietnamNet that the region will continue to serve as a bridge for publicity and sales channels and to encourage residents' visits. The administration's interest can be read as lying less in the revenue figure itself than in the point that a marketable crop has been placed on sloped land that had few uses.

Mr. Hoang himself speaks of expanding area and adding agritourism. Building picking and photo-taking into revenue is, flipped around, also a judgment that fresh-fruit wholesale alone on 2,000 ㎡ does not stand as a business. The combination of small area, high unit price, and experience-based sales is becoming one type in Ha Tinh province, where farmers also turn over a Korean-lineage melon variety three crops a year in a 500-㎡ greenhouse (Three crops a year on 500 m2 for 200–300 million dong in profit: how Ha Tinh's "Korean melon" makes money）。

The Japanese side's stance is the opposite direction. While the Yamanashi governor went as far as to make a direct request to Vietnam's minister of agriculture and rural development in May 2023, clearance as cargo has not been reached. The prefecture sees Vietnam as a destination to sell to, but in that market the local cultivation of a Japanese variety is starting up via a different route. The premise of selling and the premise of being bought do not yet mesh.

The homework these 2,000 ㎡ set for Japan's procurement plans

First, it does not work as a short-term supply source. The volume is two digits short, and none of the grading, packing, or export-quarantine systems are in place. If contacting this producing area, better to place the purpose on 'seeing' rather than 'buying.' The two-crops-a-year cropping is arranged so as not to clash head-on with Japanese producing areas' harvest seasons, and that one point alone hints at a future complementary relationship.

Second, do not misread the meaning of the price. The 200,000 VND/kg shipping price is an order of magnitude different from the band where imported Shine Muscat is on local shelves at several hundred thousand to over 1 million VND per bunch. If local production enters a mass-production stage, the price structure of Vietnam's premium-fruit shelf will be pushed from below. For those awaiting the clearance of Japanese grapes, there is no guarantee that the market at the time clearance is realized will be at the same price band as now. The cost of waiting must be built into the price premise.

Third, the issue of variety and producing-area labeling management. Japan's breeder's rights do not extend to countries where registration has not been done. Given the path by which Shine Muscat spread in China and South Korea, whether Vietnam follows the same road can only be observed while cultivation is still at the scale of a few hundred kg. If taking stock of the local registration status of the Japanese varieties your company handles, the sooner the cheaper.

The ripples 'local production of Japanese varieties' spreads across the produce market

Vietnam's fruit-and-vegetable import value was US$2.42 billion in 2024, up 23.7% year on year, exceeding US$2.4 billion for the first time. From January to May 2026 it was about US$1.3 billion, up 31% year on year, with growth continuing. The flow of imported fruit occupying mass-retail shelves is strengthening (Cherries and apples overflow onto Vietnam's shelves: the US$1.6 billion in imports opens a business opportunity), while the 2025 fruit-and-vegetable export value renewed a record high of US$8.5 billion. In a market where imports and exports swell at once, the localization of high-unit-price varieties works as pressure for import substitution.

This structure throws two directions of implication at the Japanese side. For the selling side, the risk that the price ceiling falls while awaiting clearance. For the buying side, the possibility that, several years on, 'Vietnamese Shine Muscat' appears as a real procurement option. Seen from either side, it is cheaper to finish the evaluation work while it is still a matter of a few hundred kg. Move after the producing area has solidified, and the terms will be set after the buyers who entered first have decided them.

Practical notes for producing-area confirmation and negotiation

Conclusion: look while it is still a few hundred kg

Ha Tinh's 2,000 ㎡ is not a producing area that appears on a procurement sheet. If it ever does, it will be years from now, and by then the room for negotiating terms will be narrower than today. The moves available now are limited, but all are cheap.

• Record this plot not as a supply candidate but as demonstration data on variety adaptation in the humid central hills
• Track how far yield grows in the first crop of 2027 (March–July). What comes after 100 kg, then 200 kg, is the watershed of producing-area formation
• Confirm whether the Japanese varieties your company handles are registered in Vietnam. If unregistered, they cannot be stopped once local cultivation has begun
• If you are in the position of selling to Vietnam, check the progress of grape quarantine talks on the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries' clearance-request list each quarter, and reset the assumed post-clearance price to a level that follows the spread of local production

End it as a charming tale of 'one bunch eaten on a supermarket shelf changing a hill,' and you miss the movement of the variety advancing behind it. What should be read is not the grape itself, but the fact that a Japanese variety is crossing the border faster than the institutions.

References: VietnamNet／Thanh Niên／Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Export-Clearance Requests and Progress in Plant Quarantine／JETRO, Import Regulations and Procedures for Fruit and Vegetables (Vietnam)／The Japan Agricultural News／JAcom Agricultural Cooperative News／Báo Chính phủ