Vietnam's fruit and vegetable exports hit record high

Speaking at a press conference on July 3, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien said that, the export revenue jumped 64% from the same period last year, equivalent to the figure of the entire 2022.

The agricultural sector is anticipated to face many difficulties in 2023, especially in terms of exports. Despite a decline in the export turnover of agricultural, forestry and fishery products in the first six months of 2023, positive signs have been recorded in several export products.

In particular, the total export turnover of agricultural, forestry and fishery products was posted at 24.59 billion USD in the first six months of 2023, down 11.1% over the same period in 2022.

In which, the export revenue of the group of main agricultural products reached 12.79 billion USD, up 12%; livestock products was 232 million USD, up 26.5%; and seafood products was 4.13 billion USD, down 27.4%. Meanwhile, main forestry products recorded total export revenue of 6.5 billion USD, down 28.2%.

Several products witnessed export value of over 1 billion USD each, including: coffee, rubber, rice, vegetables, cashew nuts, shrimp, and wood. Among top foreign currency earners, durian exports are forecast to reach 1 billion USD this year, according to the Vietnam Fruit and Vegetable Association.

According to Director of the Department of Crop Production (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) Nguyen Nhu Cuong, Vietnam’s area of vegetable cultivation is not large but its export value is not inferior to other countries.

He suggested that Vietnam should focus on improving its product quality and increasing deep processing to realise the goal of fruit and vegetable exports of 10 billion USD.

As for the import markets, China returned to be the largest buyer of Vietnam’s agro-forestry-fishery products with a proportion of 21.4%. The U.S. ranked second with 20.2%. It was followed by Japan with 7.7%.