Illustrative image (Source: VNA)This year, many Vietnamese agricultural products have been permitted to entermany countries, including durian, sweet potato, and bird's nests exported toChina; pomelo to the US; longan to Japan; and lemons and pomelo to New Zealand.That helps Vietnam diversify export markets for its farm produce.
Trung said that many agricultural products had been permitted to enter manycountries this year after the negotiations had been carried out for many years.
"But it is important to maintain and expand market shares in thosecountries," Trung said.
Developing coded planting regions and package facilities is one of themandatory requirements related to phytosanitary conditions for export products.
The agricultural sector guides localities, businesses and farmers to build theplanting regions and package facilities granted codes. Now, more than 300,000hectares are granted planting area codes.
Dao The Anh, deputy director of the Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences,said that the COVID-19 pandemic had changed the market structure, and manyVietnamese fruit and rice products have entered Europe, where Thailanddominated before.
“In the coming time, Vietnam still has to continue to diversify markets,organise production following the requirements of the export market on foodsafety, and complete the post-harvest stage, including package. However, theculture is expected to have still many opportunities for export growth ofagricultural products in 2023," Anh said.
Le Hang, communications director of the Vietnam Association of SeafoodExporters and Producers (VASEP), said that high inflation in export marketslike the US and European Union that made demand for seafood down has started toslow down since the fourth quarter of this year. This trend may last into thefirst quarter of 2023. So, it is expected that in the second half of 2023, theworld economy recovers and that makes the seafood demand will increase again.
Enterprises want the State to have supportive policies on the market, tax, andcapital for promoting export to the world market in the coming time, Hang said.
2022 continues to be a successful year in the export of agricultural, forestryand fishery products, although the agricultural sector must face manychallenges such as high prices of raw materials; the market is affected by theRussia - Ukraine conflict, the production protection policy of some countries;and stricter import requirements.
The agro-forestry-fishery sector has made new export records in 2022 thanks tothe diversification of markets and products.
The sector’s export turnover reached to top 53 billion USD in the year with atrade surplus of 8.5 billion USD, up 30% year-on-year, statistics show.
Notably, fishery exports would reel in nearly $11 billion, a 20-year high sinceVietnam joined the international market. Records have been seen in shrimp, trafish (pangasius) and tuna exports, with about 4.2 billion USD, 2.4 billion USD and1 billion USD in revenues, respectively.
Given the 40-year high inflation and currency fluctuations in many markets andsurging prices due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which have forced importersto consider reducing orders, Vietnamese businesses have flexibly diversifiedmarkets and products, according to Hang.
She held that free trade agreements (FTAs), especially the Comprehensive andProgressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), have significantlybenefited the domestic fishery industry, explaining that exports to the CPTPPmarkets expanded by 30% to make up 26-27% of the country’s total fishery exportvalue.
Trade promotion activities both at home and abroad have also played a role inthe hikes, Hang added.
In the year, rice export is also expected to hit a record of 7 million tonnes,said Do Ha Nam, vice chairman of the Vietnam Food Association, noting that ricecontracts would be maintained in early 2023 thanks to high prices./.
VNA
