Vietnam's Ministry of Agriculture and Environment (MAE) is advancing technical negotiations to open new export destinations for pomelo and passion fruit. As part of this, Japan has sent its own experts to Vietnam and is supervising on-site a large-scale test of the fruit flies that attach to pomelo. It is work to firm up control methods and meet the plant-quarantine conditions the Japanese side requires, and the technical requirements toward the opening to Japan are being filled in one by one. Pomelo was first shipped to Australia in April 2026 and signed a protocol with China the same month. For Japanese produce buyers, it is a sign that the lineup of Vietnamese fruit they can next handle will change.
Japanese experts are supervising on-site a fruit-fly test on pomelo in Vietnam
The core of this move is that Japan has dispatched experts to Vietnam and is conducting a large-scale fruit-fly test targeting pomelo. Fruit flies are quarantine pests that lay eggs inside fruit and are the object Japan scrutinizes most strictly when permitting fresh-fruit imports. It is verifying through Japanese eyes the occurrence in the growing region on the ground and whether post-harvest treatment and orchard-level management can bring larval contamination close to zero.
Vietnam's pomelo cultivation area is about 106,000 hectares. The growing regions range widely from the Mekong Delta to the north, and thick-skinned varieties such as da xanh withstand transport. But area aside, what Japan demands comes down to one point: whether the fruit fly's intrusion route from orchard to packing house can be cut off. The test's pass or fail directly determines whether exports to Japan are possible. On which quarantine items Japan has imposed conditions on Vietnamese regions in the past, the case in which a Vietnamese region got ahead of Japan's new regulation following it gives the outline.
Pomelo was first shipped to Australia in April and signed a protocol with China on April 15
Pomelo's market development is not Japan alone. Australia approved imports of Vietnamese pomelo, and the first shipment was carried out in April 2026. With China, on April 15, 2026, a protocol setting the plant-quarantine requirements for pomelo and fresh lime was signed. The buildup of requirements centered on fruit-fly measures and growing-area registration has entered a stage of advancing in parallel across multiple importing countries.
The fact that Australia and China opened their doors first carries two meanings for Japanese buyers. One is that the region side has already begun to accumulate experience running strict quarantine protocols. The other is that, when the opening to Japan is realized, Vietnamese pomelo will come up not as a dedicated region looking only at the Japanese market but as part of a supply network standardized for multiple countries. If the destinations are dispersed, the room for negotiating price and volume becomes easier for the import side to read.
That the China protocol was signed not for pomelo alone but together with fresh lime also cannot be overlooked. The region side is bundling items to prepare quarantine requirements and moving toward a structure where a single exporter handles multiple fruits bundled together. Rather than a Japanese importer negotiating with a region on just one item, partnering with an exporter handling a wide range of items makes it easier to unify the work of customs paperwork and growing-area registration.
For passion fruit, the US is expected to issue an import-opening notice within the year
For the other item, passion fruit, the US opening is in its final phase. The US is expected to issue a formal notice permitting imports of Vietnamese passion fruit within 2026, and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has finished firming up the technical procedures. Vietnamese passion fruit already reaches 20 countries in fresh, frozen, and juice forms, with export value of about US$202 million in the ten months of 2025 (about ¥29.9 billion at ¥148 to the dollar) and expected to reach a scale of US$240 million to 250 million for the full year. The varieties certified for export alone exceed 40.
The main growing area is the Central Highlands, where more than 80% of the passion fruit planted area and more than 90% of production are concentrated. The national 2025–2030 plan sets, centered on Lam Dong, Gia Lai, Dak Lak, Quang Tri, Nghe An, and Son La, a planted area of 12,000 to 15,000 hectares and annual output of 250,000 to 300,000 tonnes. The move to raise unit price while curbing pests through greenhouse cultivation is the double benefit of growing Vietnamese passion fruit in greenhouses where the concrete picture can be confirmed.
| Items | Market | The situation as of August 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Pomelo | China | Plant-quarantine protocol signed on April 15 |
| Pomelo | Australia | First shipment completed in April |
| Pomelo | Japan | Experts supervising the fruit-fly test on-site |
| Passion fruit | US | Import-opening notice expected within the year |
| Passion fruit | China and others | Exported to 20 countries as fresh, frozen, and juice |
Amounts are approximations based on Vietnamese statistics and industry reporting. Converted at ¥148 to the dollar. They vary with the exchange rate and the point of tallying.
If Japanese importers are to read ahead of the pomelo opening, what to watch
For Japanese produce and processing buyers, this test becomes material that asks whether you can start now to be ready to move the moment it opens. Once the fruit-fly test results come out and the quarantine conditions are set, what waits beyond is selecting the post-harvest treatment method. For bringing fresh fruit into Japan, there is a high chance that an insect-killing step such as vapor heat treatment or cold treatment is included in the conditions, and the initial move changes depending on whether you can partner with a packing house that has the treatment equipment. The irradiation-treatment operation example that leads for the US is a Vietnamese company's effort that broke the wall of fruit exports with irradiation for the US is the closest.
As procurement practice, it is realistic now, before the opening, to confirm a region's registration numbers, orchard-management records, and voluntary pesticide-residue testing system, and to line up multiple exporters as candidates. Packing houses with a track record of already clearing quarantine for Australia and China start up fast when the conditions for Japan are set. Because pomelo is robust in ambient distribution and its segments keep long, it is easy to make contact with Japanese demand as a citrus material for gifts and commercial use. Japan's citrus is centered on satsuma mandarin and shiranui, and pomelo-type fruit, whose thick peel is removed to eat the flesh segment by segment, tends to leave a shelf gap through the year. Aiming for a winter period that does not compete with domestic pomelo lets Vietnamese pomelo enter without breaking the price band. Searching for a region only after the first word of the opening will not be in time.
Practical points for the import side to secure before the opening
- Confirm, on a registration-number basis, whether the candidate region is among the orchards covered by the fruit-fly test
- Preferentially approach packing houses that have their own post-harvest treatment equipment such as vapor heat and cold treatment
- Place exporters with a quarantine track record for Australia and China as the first candidates for the Japan launch
- Narrow the variety to transport-resistant thick-skinned types such as da xanh, and measure shelf life through trial imports
- Design the initial volume for uses such as gifts and commercial use that do not overlap in season with domestic pomelo
The next move is to track when the test results are published and to secure a packing house early
The opening of pomelo to Japan lies beyond the technical gate of the fruit-fly test results and the fixing of the Japanese side's quarantine conditions. The sequence of Australia's April shipment, China's April protocol, and the US passion-fruit notice within the year shows the trend of Vietnamese fruit's export destinations increasing in a short period. What Japanese buyers can do now is, while tracking the test's progress and when the quarantine conditions are published, make contact in advance with regions and packing houses that have post-harvest treatment equipment. The moment the opening becomes public, the scramble for supply quotas begins. The time to move is before the notice.
