AUTHORITIES at the northern Vietnamese province of Lang Son have proposed exporters nationwide to stop sending goods to its border with China until the Lunar New Year festival in early February.
The proposal comes as thousands of trucks remain stranded at the border gates while waiting for Chinese authorities to clear them.
According to a Vn Express report, Lang Son provincial Department of Industry and Trade sent the proposal to cities and provinces on Tuesday as some 2,460 container trucks, with 60 per cent of them carrying fresh fruits, were still waiting for clearance to enter China.
Other border gates including Tan Thanh and Coc Nam are still offering temporary customs clearance but only a few containers are allowed to pass through to China each day.
Amid the Covid-19 outbreak, China has recently tightened checks on imported goods and their transporters, leading to a congestion of Vietnamese container trucks at border gates over the past month.
Vietnam Customs said that on Dec 21, there were about 6,200 container trucks stuck at the border with China, with 4,400 of them in Lang Son province.
Some of the fresh produce has rotted while waiting for weeks and it has forced many trucks to turn around, causing huge losses to exporters.
The Vietnam Fruit Association Exporters had previously said that exporters could lose up to VND4 trillion (US$175 million) if the container trucks remain stuck at the Vietnam-China border.
It said fruits such as dragon fruit, jackfruit, watermelons and mangoes could rot due to the delay.
Meanwhile, Vietnamese exporters have also been encouraged to ensure goods and their packages are free of Covid, and to increase their quality.
The Express report said that late last week, the Vietnamese government instructed nine ministries and sectors to jointly deal with goods congestion in Lang Son and other northern border provinces.
Lang Son authorities will also continue engaging with their Chinese counterparts in Guangxi to speed up clearance of perishable agriculture goods.
Vietnam's agricultural exports to China have been held up on numerous occasions this year due to Covid-related restrictions.
China is one of Vietnam's top trading partners and the import-export turnover of agriculture, forestry and fishery products between the two countries had grown strongly from US$8 billion in 2015 to over US$11 billion last year.
China is Vietnam's second-largest export market for agricultural, forestry and fishery products behind the United States, posting an export turnover of US$8.4 billion in the first 11 months of the year.
This accounts for almost 20 per cent of Vietnam's total agricultural exports.