Export
Australia is a net melon exporter. For the year ending June 2020 Australia exported 21,772 tonnes of fresh melons as profiled in the graph below, where imports are counted as negative tonnes. (Source: Australian Horticulture Statistics Handbook – Fruit – 2019).
The Australian melon industry has an Export Strategy and Plan that aims to provide industry and government agencies with a clear, prioritised and commercially focussed export market access plan. The Plan provides the industry with an in-depth profile of priority markets for Australian melon exports, and provides technical information to facilitate the industry’s future decision making and prioritisation for market access.
This plan identified five major export markets for further development for Australian melons. One of these markets was Japan. In 2016, Australia’s Free Trade Agreement with Japan eliminated Japan’s 6% import tariff on Australian watermelons and reduced the tariff on other melons to 3% (scheduled to decline to zero by April 1, 2019). This opens up a key growth market for Australian rockmelon, watermelon, and honeydew melon growers.
With these promising developments, the Australian melon industry commissioned a project so that interested Australian melon growers are aware of how to take advantage of the export potential and that they understand the Japanese market access requirements. The project had the objectives of:
The full project report can be accessed via this link: Melons in Japan.
VM18005 Market Intelligence Reports Melons (Protocol & Non-Protocol Markets) provides melon levy payers and exporters with market intelligence for melon trade in the industry’s main protocol and non-protocol markets.
Melons were Australia’s 4th largest fresh fruit export category by volume in 2019/20. The project, including 13 monthly export updates and 5 quarterly reports in greater depth, tracks Australian melon export trade and competitive positions in strategic markets.
Export data reports from VM18005 available for melon growers are:
Annual Reports
Year to Date Reports
Monthly Updates
Some primary information resources available for melon growers are:
For a complete listing of all of the Melon Export Resources on this site please goto our Resources Page and select the category of “Export” and click the “Apply Filter” button.