Export of agriculture, forestry and fishery products reached over USD 30 billion in 9 months

According to official statistics, the total export-import turnover of agriculture, forestry and fishery in the first 9 months of 2019 was estimated at 53.2 billion USD; in which, export is about 30.02 billion USD, up by 2.7% YoY; Import turnover is estimated at 23.16 billion USD, down by 0.7%.

Thus, the surplus of agriculture, forestry and fishery products reached 6.86 billion USD, 957 million USD higher than the same period last year.

Export growth in 9 months was mainly achieved by increasing the export value of main forest products to 7.93 billion USD, up 18%; Livestock export is estimated at US $ 0.53 billion, up 8.6%.

The main agricultural product group still dropped sharply with 7.2%, reaching 13.9 billion USD. Seafood is also a commodity group which export turnover did not reach as expected. Up to now, seafood export is about 6.23 billion USD, down by 2%.

There are currently 6 groups/products with export value of over US $ 2 billion including: wood and wooden products, coffee, rice, cashew nuts, vegetables, shrimp.

Export of agricultural and aquatic products decreased due to export prices of many commodities such as: coffee, rice, cashew nuts, cassava and products from cassava, shrimp and tra catfish decreased sharply compared to the same period in 2018. Besides, export to some big and important markets also dropped, especially China market dropped by 8%, EU is down by 6.5%.

In the coming time, global trade is expected to continue to decline, export prices of some key agricultural products are still in a downward trend.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said that the whole sector focused on implementing measures to promote trade promotion activities, remove trade barriers, expand export markets and encourage domestic consumption.

Specialized units need to research, assess the market overview of some essential commodities such as rice, sugar, seafood, pork and propose solutions to ensure the balance between supply and demand, stabilize the market price.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will coordinate and support localities in introducing, advertising, consuming, and promoting trade of local specialty agricultural products, organizing conferences and forums to discuss solutions in production, processing, and promoting domestic consumption and export.

The functional units should focus on solving existing difficulties for rice, pork, milk and fruit products with the Chinese market; removing technical barriers, solving problems related to seafood products, especially for the EU to withdraw "yellow card" of Vietnamese seafood products, the US Fisheries Import Monitoring Program; fruits, pepper ... with EU market; aquatic products, vegetables, coffee for the Japanese market; seafood, wood and wood products, processed chicken, salted poultry eggs with Korea. At the same time, it is necessary to open new markets for many export products, such as mangoes to the US, UK, Australia ...

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development actively supports businesses to deploy, effectively exploit opportunities of Free Trade Agreements and enhance market development activities. The Ministry also cooperates with associations, industries, and businesses to closely monitor the supply and demand of food market, the situation of import and export; strengthen tight control of smuggling in the domestic market.