Nguyen Van Chi Cong’s family in Thu Duc is concentrating on trimming leaves and branches, getting rid of zinc wire and repotting their apricot trees.  Cong hired around 50 workers for the work, paying each person VND300,000-500,000 (USD12-21) per day.

According to Cong, the very cold December has posed more difficulties for the apricot trees. The last time he saw such cold weather at this time of the year was a decade ago.

"The cold weather has badly affected the apricot blossoming,” Cong noted.

Cong has 20 years of experience in growing apricot trees. Among his 2,000 apricot trees, around over 700 aged 5-10 years old, 400 are aged 10-20 years old, and 250 are over 40 years old. Each tree is priced from five to 150 million. The figure is up to VND1.5 billion for an old tree.

“I will sell 60 trees to customers in Hanoi for Tet,” Cong said.

Huynh Van Hai has two apricot gardens covering a total area of 5,000 square metres in Truong Tho Ward. He has planned to supply 500-600 apricot trees for Tet.