The country has boosted pork imports to reduce the pork price from the end of the third quarter of 2020 (Photo: nld.com.vn)Theproduction of meat is expected to reach about 5.7 million tonnes, including3.67 million tonnes of pork (up 6.1 percent), 1.5 million tonnes of poultrymeat (up 5.8 percent) and 395,000 tonnes of beef (up 6 percent).
Meanwhile,eggs are expected to surge by 7.5 percent year-on-year to about 15.6 billionand milk production to hit 1.21 million tonnes, up 11.5 percent.
DeputyMinister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien said anotherimportant task in 2021 for the livestock sector is to complete five strategicprojects for the livestock industry in Vietnam under the Livestock DevelopmentStrategy Project in 2021-2030.
In addition,the industry needs to make full use of investment from the State budget,official development assistance and the private sector to carry out scientificresearch and development programmes for animal varieties.
Besidescontinuing to build safe livestock facilities, Tien said the livestock industryshould attract investment to build high-tech livestock productionmodels to optimise production and create competitive and high-qualitylivestock products for export.
According tothe Department of Livestock Production, the total number of pigs last year was26.17 million, up 5 percent year-on-year and the total number of cows was 5.87million, up 4.2 percent. The industry produced about 14.5 billion eggs,up 9.5 percent.
The totaloutput of animal feed was estimated at 20 million tonnes, up 5.6 percentyear-on-year.
The GeneralDepartment of Customs reported Vietnam imported 41,500 pig varieties worth24.7 million USD, 301,000 pigs worth 84.6 million USD, 3.4 million poultryworth 17.9 million USD and 518,000 live buffalos for slaughtering, worth 556million USD.
In 2020, thelivestock industry gained a total export value of about 1.2 billion USD,including 28.5 million USD from fresh, chilled or frozen pork exports, 1.4million USD from eggs, 71.3 million USD from natural honey, 25.1 million USDfrom fresh poultry meat and 28.1 million USD from processed meat products. Italso exported animal feed and raw materials for animal food production worth 789million USD.
Tien saidlast year, Vietnam successfully controlled African swine fever helping the pig productionindustry recover to about 3 million sows and 26 million pigs, reaching 85 percentof total volume before the African swine fever outbreak. In addition, thecountry boosted pork imports to make the pork price fall from the endof the third quarter.
Poultryproduction in 2020 grew by 10 percent to a record high of 500 million.
Largeinvestment
Meanwhile,the Department of Livestock Production’s Deputy Director Nguyen Van Trong saidthere was a wave of large enterprises and corporations investing in livestockin 2020.
Many largepoultry production companies like Minh Du, Cao Khanh andDabaco expanded and upgraded breeding plants with an output of hundreds ofmillions of poultry each year.
Foreign-investedenterprises and other companies also made large-scale investments in thelivestock sector, including Cargill, Japfa, Hoa Phat, Thaco, Mavin, Hung Nhonand Tan Long.
Most of theinvestment projects have a large production scale and use high technologyand production chains, aiding the modernisation and sustainable development ofthe livestock industry, according to the department.
Theyincluded CP Vietnam Joint Stock Company’s 250-million USD poultry slaughterplant in Binh Phuoc province. The plant has a slaughtering output of 50 millionchickens in the first phase and 100 million chickens in the second phase,making it the largest chicken production, slaughtering and processing plant inSoutheast Asia.
MasanGroup’s Masan MEATLife Joint Stock Company put the MEATDeli Saigon MeatProcessing Complex into operation in Long An Province with a total capital of 1.8trillion USD. The complex has a designed capacity of 1.4 million pigs per yearto produce 155,000 tonnes of chilled meat products and products made fromchilled meat./.
VNA
