In March 2026, the Canby City Council passed Resolution No. 1452, authorizing Mayor Brian Hodson to sign a memorandum of understanding with his counterpart in Bắc Giang City, Vietnam. The two cities will become sister cities. Dragonberry Produce led the presentation that brought the resolution to the council floor, while also announcing a new agreement to expand into six Costco stores across Asia.
What happened in the council chamber
Leading the venture, the Herald Pioneer reported, was Dragonberry Produce President Amy Nguyen, who also serves as president of the United Vietnam Alliance (UVA), alongside Sen. Christine Drazan, UVA Vice-President Danial Wong, and Canby Economic Development Director Jamie Stickel.
After Stickel’s presentation on the partnership, Wong walked the council through Dragonberry’s growth across the United States and into Asia, including the new Costco agreement. Amy framed what the sister-city relationship would mean in human terms.
Sen. Drazan joined the endorsement.
Why Bắc Giang, specifically
The choice of Bắc Giang City is not a coincidence. Bắc Giang is home to the lychee orchards that feed Dragonberry’s US and Canadian Costco distribution. It is the region that has been central to Vietnam’s premium fruit story for the last several years.
Canby
Bắc Giang
What began in those orchards in 2025, with record-setting lychee shipments reaching Costco’s US and Canadian networks, is now extending into civic relationships at the city level. Canby, Oregon, where Dragonberry is headquartered, will become institutionally linked to the place where many of Dragonberry’s most important suppliers live and work.
The two cities are now officially coming together. Lychee crossed the Pacific to land on American shelves from Bac Giang. Now a civic relationship crosses in the other direction, connecting an Oregon city to its Vietnamese counterpart in the same region.
And six new Costco stores
The Costco Asia expansion follows the model that has worked in the US and Canada. Six new stores across Asian markets will carry Dragonberry-distributed fruit. The infrastructure that scaled lychee shipments now translates outward, into the markets that Vietnamese-grown specialty fruit was always closest to.
The distribution arc
United States
Canada
Asia
The Vietnam-United States Comprehensive Strategic Partnership is the policy framework that makes both moments possible. And Resolution No. 1452 makes it visible at the city level.
