Overcoming difficulties, Vietnamese agricultural products earn more than US$41 billion

2020 wasa difficult year for Vietnam's agricultural sector in many aspects, especially the serious impact ofthe Covid-19 pandemicon agricultural, forestry and fishery exports. However, the total export value for the whole year still achieved impressive results of over US$41 billion.

The result of the export of agricultural, forestry and fishery products of over US$41 billion by 2020 is a great effort of the whole industry in adifficult context. Photo: Internet

According to the latest information from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, for the whole of 2020, the total export turnover of agriculture, forestry and fishery reached US$41.2 billion, up 2.5% compared to 2019. Ofwhich, the main agricultural products are estimated at US$18.54 billion, down 0.5%; seafood US$8.47 billion, down 0.8%; forest products and wooden products were estimated at over US$12.8 billion, up 13.4%.

Trade barriers and technical barriers are some of the typical difficulties facing Vietnamese agricultural products in the export process. In this perspective, the representative of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said that in 2020, the whole sector has actively resolved technical barriers in the field of food safety, animal and plant quarantine with countries and regions such as Thailand, China, Australia, the United States, EU, Indonesia, Korea, Japan and Taiwan.

Coordinated with the Ministry of Industry and Trade to review and advise the Government on the contents related to rice and rice export; remove difficulties, support dairy export enterprises, promote swallow nest and black jelly to be officially exported to China; handle to avoid US sanctions on the trade deficit and maintain export growth in this market.

Looking back at 2020, it is not difficult to see that Vietnamese agriculture has continuously faced dual difficulties. Mainlythe Covid-19 pandemicthat disrupted domestic and foreign supply chains.

In addition, the agricultural sector also has to deal with saline intrusion in the Mekong Delta, droughts in some places in the Central Highlands, the South Central Coast and the Mekong Delta.

In fact, the first half of the year exported a lot of agricultural products. The USD has recorded a significant decline, raising concerns about a difficult journey for the whole year.

In June 2020, looking back the past half-year, the leader of the agricultural sector Nguyen Xuan Cuong had to say: "We must look back at the unfavorable and challenging situation in the past six months. Next, from which to set out policies, executive plans and synchronous actions in all areas, from the administration, to enterprises. The motto is that with dual challenges, you must be determined and try to do it 2-3 times.”

Thereby, the achievements at the end of the year are the result of the continuous efforts of the whole system.

Besides the gains made, the limitations are inevitable. It can be seen that in the development process, there are still many unsustainable factors, including unstable growth, not meeting the requirements of the centralized, large-scale and high-standard commodity production from the international market.

Along with that, the processing industry of agricultural, forestry and aquatic products, especially in the stage of preservation and deep processing, although there have been many results and efforts, have not met the high requirements of reality, the secondary industry is not yet strongly developed; while postharvest losses are still high.

In 2021, the whole industry determined to continue coordinating with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, agencies and enterprises to closely monitor price movements, supply and demand of essential agricultural products (rice, pork, vegetables, aquatic products, sugar, salt) to balance supply and demand, ensure domestic food security and maintain exports; improve the quality of market forecasts and promptly inform localities and enterprises to developappropriate production and business plans.

Particularly for the international market, efforts will be made to take advantage of Free Trade Agreement (FTA), especially the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and EU-Vietnam FTA (EVFTA) to promote the export of key agricultural products.

Maintain and sustainably develop the Chinese market; to expand the agricultural product market to the additional structured economies with Vietnam, such as Japan, Korea, India, EU, the Middle East, and Argentina; choose to bring suitable products to potential markets such as Russia, the Middle East, Africa and ASEAN.

By 2020, the entire agricultural sector will continue to maintain nine commodity groups with an export turnover of over US$1.0 billion, of which five items with a turnover of over US$3 billion (wood and wood products above; shrimp; vegetables, fruits, cashew nuts and rice). The industry's trade surplus reached US$10.4 billion, up 6.5% compared to 2019.

For the export market, in the past year, the agricultural sector opened new markets for many export products, such as fresh lychee for the first time to be exported through official channels to Japan; rambutan into Taiwan; strawberries and pumpkins to New Zealand; and shrimp and pangasius exported to Brazil.