Chiayi county's "Taiwan Tangerines" (citrus-ponkans) are proving to be very popular in Singapore, with more than 300 tonnes exported to Singapore in the past month alone, a county government official said Tuesday.

The county's Agriculture Bureau Chief Hsu Ling-sung said that export of tangerines helped to correct for an over-abundance of produce in the domestic market and that the "Great Luck" tangerine sets, packaged with a miniature spring couplet on each tangerine, have become hot-selling gifts in Singapore in the run-up to the Chinese New Year holiday.

With the Tropic of Cancer running through it, Chiayi county is an ideal place to grow a variety of fruits including tropical pineapples, bananas, papayas, guavas, mangos, as well as temperate tangerines, oranges, and pears, Hsu said, adding that tangerine orchards in the county cover more than 2,300 hectares and produce over 33,000 tonnes of fruit.

County Magistrate Chen Ming-wen encouraged the bureau two years ago to export tropical fruits to temperate countries like Japan, China, Canada and South Korea, and temperate fruits to tropical countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asian countries. Hsu said the marketing strategy has proved to be successful.

County government's marketing strategy has helped to create export channels for the county's high quality tangerines, Hsu said, pointing out that with Singapore importing more than 300 tonnes of Taiwan's tangerines in only one month, on average, every group of 20 people in Singapore has collectively consumed one creatively packaged set of "Great Luck" tangerines.