A man transports newly-picked durians in Chanthaburi Province, Thailand. Photo:Xinhua

Large quantities of durian began to arrive in China following the harvest in Southeast Asia, with the China-Laos Railway having transported 50,300 tons of imported durian year-to-date, the Global Times learned.

Meanwhile, the topic of durian prices hitting record lows and people achieving the "freedom" to purchase the exotic and once expensive tropical fruit became a major topic on Chinese social media platforms on Monday after a weekend that witnessed a huge quantity of the crop arrive at Chinese sea and land ports.

Cross-border transportation of ASEAN fruit via the Mohan railway port in Southwest China's Yunnan Province has continued to accelerate and increase in efficiency, with volumes constantly breaking records. As of Sunday, the China-Laos Railway had transported 50,300 tons of imported durian since January 1, up 94.2 percent year-on-year, according to a statement sent to the Global Times by China Railway Kunming Group Co on Monday. 

On April 23 alone, 3,661 tons of fruit arrived at the Mohan railway port, highlighting the railway's growing cross-border capacity for fruit logistics.

In Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, a durian distribution center opened on Sunday, the China News Service reported. Banking on an overland transportation network, the center aims to handle more than 15 percent of China's fresh durian imports within three to five years.

The center will expand cold-chain storage, bonded processing and finance, targeting more than 400 annual international cold-chain freight trains, according to the report.

In Guangzhou, a key Chinese coastal city in South China, a "super weekend" saw three ships with 356 containers, or more than 6,300 tons, of fresh Thai durian arrive at Guangzhou's Nansha Port within 24 hours during the weekend ahead of the May Day holiday. 

As Southeast Asia's harvest peaks, Nansha Port has received more than 9,500 tons of fresh durian from various countries since April 15. A durian carnival scheduled for April 30 will offer direct sales of Thai Golden Pillow and Malaysian Musang King breeds under the "arrive, open, sell" model, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Sunday.

As durian shipments arrive at Chinese ports in large quantities, the prices of the once expensive fruit have fallen sharply, with retail prices down sharply from last year's level to about 40 yuan ($5.85) per kilogram, according to media reports.

Traders said that the combined factors of the harvest in Thailand and the increasing number of market entrants to the sector have caused durian prices to fall sharply this year, but they noted that the demand for the fruit is here to stay in the Chinese market.

Mia Lu, procurement manager with Jiaxing Higo Import & Export Co, agreed, noting that logistics have gotten much better and costs have become much lower this year. 

"For example, Guangzhou now has special direct durian shipping lines, with a total of 10 weekly ships straight from Thailand, where durian production is up 30-40 percent compared with last year," Lu told the Global Times on Monday, citing corresponding information from official data. 

"Going forward, the market will no longer be about price competition, it will shift to quality competition."