The two-day Taiwan-Japan Dagang Fruit Festival opened yesterday at the Kaohsiung Music Center, with nearly 100 stalls promoting agricultural products alongside music and dance performances.
Fruit exports totaled 22,517 tonnes from January to last month, with a value of NT$1.35 billion (US$45.82 million), Agriculture and Food Agency data showed.
Fruits exported to Japan totaled 16,018 tonnes in the period, accounting for 71 percent of the total, showing that Japan is an important market for Taiwan, the agency said.
Photo courtesy of the Kaohsiung City Government
The festival on the music center’s Sea Breeze Plaza and Riverside Promenade was organized by the Kaohsiung City Government and the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association as part of efforts to promote Taiwan’s fruits and processed fruit products, as well as bolster bilateral friendship and cooperation.
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) last month at a meeting with Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association Chief Representative Kazuyuki Katayama said that the event was also held in Kaohsiung last year, drawing about 100,000 visitors over two days.
Katayama at the meeting said that he expected the festival this year to be more popular than last year, adding that he hopes the city government would continue to support Japanese in Kaohsiung in terms of safety, education and investments.
In related news, the Ministry of Agriculture has collaborated with the Ibaraki Prefectural Government in Japan to import Taiwanese fruits to the prefecture to enrich the lunch menus of local elementary and junior-high schools.
The effort is part of a memorandum of understanding that the Agriculture and Food Agency signed with Kasama, a city in Ibaraki, in 2019.
Nearly 3 tonnes of pineapples are expected to be shipped from Taiwan to Ibaraki this year from May, with more than 33,000 students across 92 schools in the prefecture to taste them, the agency said in a statement on Friday.
Last week, about 630kg of Irwin mangoes grown in Taiwan were exported to Ibaraki to supplement lunches of nearly 8,000 students from 21 junior-high schools in the prefecture ahead of their summer vacation, the statement said.
Nearly 40,000 students across 113 schools in Ibaraki have had fresh mangoes or pineapples from Taiwan in their school lunches this year, it said.
That would give young Japanese a good impression of Taiwanese fruits and lay a foundation to expand local consumer markets, it added.
Additional reporting by CNA
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