The South African government is exploring ways to find markets for citrus fruit in the BRICS countries.

This was revealed by Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Tina Joemat-Pettersson at a media briefing in Johannesburg on Friday.

BRICS is the acronym of an association of five major emerging national economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

The European Union (EU) has been the traditional market for citrus fruit from South Africa, but threatening to reduce its import from South Africa due to detecting black spots on the citrus from South Africa.

The minister said,"We will be assisting the citrus industry to deepen the market access in the BRICS nations, especially with India and China."

"When we meet as BRICS agriculture ministers later in the year, we will discuss this further,"said she.

This is not a replacement of the EU market, but the broadening and expanding of the citrus industry to access the BRICS market as well, according to the minister. "The EU and the U.S. remain our traditional markets," added Tina Joemat-Pettersson.

The female minister said they are working with the EU to ensure that all the citrus fruits exported do not have black spots.

South Africa is also looking at diversifying their markets, including Africa.

The minister indicated that the neighboring country of Zimbabwe is one of the major importers of citrus.

Pieter Nortje of the Citrus Growers Association told Xinhua that they are happy to explore the markets in other BRICS countries and Africa.

"This is a great day for the citrus industry.It is wonderful that we agree and share absolute common goals with our government. We are considering China as our market," Nortje said.

The problem is that the temperature in China is hot, while the shipping temperature has to be about 0.6 degrees," said Nortje.

"We are working with government to take our brand to China after exploring how we can have an alternative way of exporting our citrus to China," he added.