2019 agriculture reaches goal of USD41.3 billion

Specifically, the sector's trade surplus is estimated at USD9.9 billion, USD1.12 billion higher than the previous year. This year, agriculture continues to witness 10 commodity groups earning export turnover of more than USD1 billion each, with three of them bagging over USD3 billion, including wood and wooden products, shrimp, fruit and vegetable, coffee and cashew.

It is estimated that the GDP growth rate of the whole sector will reach about 2.2%; of which aquatic products will increase 6.12% and forestry will rise 3.98%.

According the ministry, agricultural production in 2019 has met many difficulties and has been affected by African hog cholera which was complicated with outbreaks in 63 provinces and centrally-governed cities; causing unprecedented damages for domestic and world livestock.

Weather changes caused droughts, floods and forest fires in some places such as the Central Highlands and the North and South of the central region; markets for many agricultural products were unstable, tending to fall sharply and was affected by trade wars among big countries.

In addition, the sector also faced issues of productivity, quality, efficiency and low competitiveness of the economy.

Over the past year, the ministry also actively negotiated to be able to export more high-value fresh fruits to the US, Australia, Japan and China. At the same time, it also boosted shipment of processed chicken meat to Japan, suckling pigs to Malaysia and Hong Kong (China), honey to the EU and the US, and the first batch of milk to China in October 2019.

Furthermore, it finalized negotiation with authorities of Hong Kong (China) to ship frozen pork, processed chicken meat and bird's nest to the market.

For seafood export, the US has recognized Vietnamese catfish products, while China gave the green light for the country to import three more species of Vietnamese aquatic products, including ngao hoa, ngao trắng and nghêu lụa, which are all types of clams.

This decision brings the number of aquatic products Vietnam exports to China up to 48 that are used to process food, in addition to 36 ornamental species and one for breeding.

(Source: CPV)