Tokyo (VNA) – About 350 stores andsupermarkets of retail giant AEON across Japan, along with its website, aredisplaying diverse products during the Vietnamese Goods Week that kicked off onJune 25.

The products on display include fresh fruits likelychee and banana, food, garments-textiles, leather and footwear, householdutensils, and handicrafts.

AEON imported 30 tonnes of lychee from Vietnam’snorthern provinces of Bac Giang and Hai Duong to serve the event as the fruithas won preference in Japan.

Vietnamese Ambassador to Japan Vu Hong Nam said thisis the second year Vietnamese lychee has hit shelves in Japan.

Gaining a foothold for the fruit in a demandingmarket like Japan will help Vietnamese farmers change their production,processing and preservation methods, while promoting the prestige of the fruitglobally, he said.

It is hard to bring Vietnamese lychee to Japan, andeven harder to maintain its foothold in the market, Nam said, urging exportersto invest more in preservation equipment and technologies and farmers toobserve production process.

Vietnamese Trade Counsellor in Japan Ta Duc Minhaffirmed that Vietnamese lychee has satisfied stringent regulations on foodquarantine and safety set by Japan.

Therefore, the fruit has been consumed well in themarket despite the complex development of COVID-19, he said.

Apart from lychee, AEON has focused on promotingVietnamese banana which Soichi Okazaki - Executive Officer, ASEAN Business ofAEON - said tastes better than that imported from Ecuador, the Philippines, andTaiwan (China).

The annual Vietnamese Goods Week aims to raiseAEON’s sales of Vietnamese products in Japan to 1 billion USD by 2025. Throughthe event, more than 100 businesses from 21 Vietnamese cities and provinceshave introduced their products to Japanese consumers.

During a reception for the Vietnamese ambassadorprior to the opening ceremony of the Vietnamese Goods Week at AEON Lake Town inSaitama prefecture, Okazaki said the group has worked to promote many Vietnameseproducts not only in Vietnam but also in other Southeast Asian nations andJapan.

AEON’s import revenue of Vietnamese goods rose from35 billion JPY (300 million USD) in 2019 to 40.4 billion JPY last year, andwould reach 50 billion JPY this year, he said.

Nam said other Vietnamese fruits like longan arealso expected to enter Japan in the time ahead.

According to statistics of the General Department ofVietnam Customs, Vietnam earned 1.8 billion USD from exporting agricultural andfishery products to Japan last year, up 0.1 percent from 2019.

In the first five months of this year, the value was740.4 million USD, a rise of 3.2 percent year-on-year./.