Shiotani said the group wants to promote the fruit, particularly from the northern province of Hung Yen, among Vietnamese consumers and foreigners in Vietnam.
AEON hopes for relaxer regulations on farm produce trade between Vietnam and Japan so that Hung Yen longan will be exported to Japan in the near future just like lychee, he added.
In 2020, AEON was the first Japanese firm to put Vietnamese lychees on shelves at its stores in Japan. In the 2021 crop, the amount of Vietnamese lychees exported to Japan increased by 750 percent compared to last year.
Japan officially approved the import of Vietnamese fresh lychee in December 2019. Similar decision is yet to be made for longan from Vietnam.
