In the first 6 months of 2020, export of agriculture, forestry and fisheries products decreased by 3.4% compared to the same period last year

According to the report of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the agricultural, forestry and fishery production and business continued to maintain a fairly good growth rate, production value of the whole sector in the first 6 months grew at 1.16%, while GDP growth rate was estimated at over 1%.

In the first six months of 2020, although the whole sector has enhanced trade promotion to open the markets, analyzed and forecasted demand and market development in response to the impact of Covid-19 pandemic in order to propose solutions and timely address obstacles at all markets. However, the 6-month export turnover was estimated at 18.81 billion USD, down 3.4% over the same period in 2019. The crop products were estimated at 8.94 billion USD, down 2.7%; seafood was estimated at 3.56 billion USD, down by 8.6%; forest products were estimated at 5.3 billion USD, up 2.7%; livestock products were estimated at 190 million USD, down 19.4%. Trade surplus is 4.5 billion USD, increasing by 339 million USD. In addition, in the first six months of the year, 9 processing projects for agricultural, forestry and aquatic products with a total investment of over 10,000 billion VND were started, inaugurated and put into operation. The number of large agricultural, forestry and aquatic product processing factories / establishments that have just started and come into operation for 5 years in the period of 2016 - 2020 is 49 factories / facilities with a total investment of 41,425 billion VND.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said that the growth rate of agricultural, forestry and fishery export turnover slowed down; The main reason is due to the drop of export prices of many key agricultural products; export turnover to the Chinese market decreased. The implementation of solutions to overcome difficulties and organization of trade promotion activities, promoting the consumption of agricultural products in the post Covid-19 period has been still slow because of the block-down policy and travel limit by most countries. Despite the drastic direction, together with the participation of localities, businesses and people but the re-herd of pigs mainly takes place at the large-scale production facilities, and slowly at the households.

According to Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong, the agricultural sector is affected by "double risks". Drought, salinity in the Mekong Delta this year exceeded historic milestones compared to 2016. African swine fever (ASF) is terribly occurred. The history of the pork industry in the world has never recorded such great damage. Pork accounts for a very large proportion in the food structure, having a great impact on GDP growth and consumer price index.

Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong affirmed: When facing great difficulties and challenges, we must focus our mind on working out solutions to remove, we don’t change the targets of the 2020 plan endorsed by the Government. In particular, we have to, at all costs, complete the two fronts, i.e. food and foodstuff production, thereby ensuring about 43.5 million tons of rice, enough food for 100 million Vietnamese people and exporting around 6.5 - 6.7 million tons of rice; ensuring to meet the domestic demand for meat, eggs, milk, vegetables… and to export with a total value of about 42 billion USD.

To do so, in the last 6 months of the year, the agricultural sector continues to promote the sector’s restructuring, improve productivity, quality of agricultural products, and efficiency of production and business. Strongly develop the market, remove barriers, create favorable conditions for the consumption of agricultural, forestry and fisheries products. Ensure irrigation development, natural disaster prevention and sustainable development. Continue to innovate and develop production forms. Strengthen quality management of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, agricultural materials and ensure food safety and hygiene. Continuing to review and perfect mechanisms and policies; to step up administrative reform, improve the efficiency of the sector management.