Don't let "stains" ruin a bright painting!

In 2024, the agricultural sector achieved a record in both agricultural exports and trade surplus. However, recent warnings from the import market are bad news for the sector.

Sad and happy intertwined

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in 2024, overcoming many difficulties and challenges, the agricultural sector has spectacularly reached the finish line with many new records in agricultural, forestry and fishery exports.

Specifically, the total export turnover of agriculture, forestry and fishery products is estimated to reach a record high of 62.5 billion USD, up 18.7% compared to 2023, and the trade surplus continues to reach a new record of 17.9 billion USD, up 46.8%.

The market for agricultural, forestry and fishery products continues to expand in terms of both product lines and products, focusing on the domestic market; promoting trade, opening new markets, removing trade barriers, and increasing the export of agricultural, forestry and fishery products in the context of a difficult world market. In particular, the Chinese market is considered a bright spot when importing nearly 4.1 billion USD of fruits and vegetables alone, accounting for 66.52% of the total export turnover of fruits and vegetables of Vietnam.

The EU temporarily increased the frequency of durian inspections at the border from 10% to 20% (Photo: VNA)

However, along with those records are some not-so-bright colors on the picture of agricultural exports when recently, the Vietnam SPS Office (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) sent a notice to the Plant Protection Department and the Vietnam Fruit and Vegetable Association regarding the amendment of Regulation (EU) 2019/1793 on temporarily strengthening official controls and emergency measures to manage the import of certain goods from some third countries into the EU. Accordingly, for Vietnamese durian, the EU temporarily increased the frequency of border checks from 10% to 20%.

The reason for this change is that Vietnamese durian does not comply with regulations on pesticide residue levels. Accordingly, EU authorities have discovered many pesticide active ingredients with high residues on durian such as: Carbendazim, Fipronil, Azoxystrobin, Dimethomorph, Metalaxyl, Lambda-cyhalothrin, Acetamiprid. These active ingredients are regulated by the EU with maximum residue limits (MRL) from 0.005-0.1 mg/kg depending on the type.

For dragon fruit, chili and okra, the EU maintains the same frequency of border inspections. Of which, the inspection frequency for dragon fruit is 30%, chili and okra are 50%. These three products must be accompanied by pesticide residue analysis results when imported into the EU market.

Previously, in August this year, the leader of the National Information and Enquiry Point on Epidemiology and Animal and Plant Quarantine (Vietnam SPS Office, under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) also informed that in the first half of 2024, the EU sent up to 57 warnings to Vietnamese authorities due to the presence of antibiotic residues and banned substances in our country's agricultural products.

In China - one of the biggest markets for Vietnamese fruits and vegetables, this country has repeatedly warned about the situation of Vietnamese fruits, especially exported durian, not meeting the permitted quality standards.

In June, the General Administration of Customs of China announced that 77 batches of durian exported from Vietnam to this country were found to be contaminated with heavy metals (cadmium). These batches were identified as being related to 33 packaging factories and 40 growing areas from Vietnam.

At the same time, China also decided to ban the import of durian from 15 packaging factories and 18 growing areas in Vietnam. Because these factories and growing areas did not comply with the regulations of the Protocol on plant quarantine requirements signed between the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Vietnam and the General Administration of Customs of China.

Standardize to maintain market

At the conference to promote agricultural exports recently organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr. Nong Duc Lai, Vietnam's Trade Counselor in the Chinese market, said: Vietnam is among the 10 countries (territories) with the largest number of agricultural products and food products that have been warned. Of these, seafood, fruit juice (not including coffee, dairy products), and cakes of all kinds have been warned the most.

Therefore, the solution to maintain the growth rate of agricultural exports is that Vietnamese authorities need to strengthen the management and supervision of export quality. At the same time, regularly update and disseminate information to businesses about regulations, quality standards, and food safety and hygiene of importing countries.

In fact, according to statistics from the Vietnam SPS Office, in 2024, markets issued 1,029 notifications on food safety. Thus, on average, the Vietnam SPS Office received 3 notifications per day, some of which were hundreds of pages long. For example, in November 2024, Japan had up to 10 notifications on pesticides, some of which reduced active ingredients by up to 10 times. Of these total notifications, most were from WTO members with whom we are trading, such as the EU, Korea, Japan, and China, which also had some changes.

To meet increasingly stringent market standards, growing and breeding areas have no choice but to comply with the regulations of the Vietnamese market and import markets. In addition, it is necessary to strengthen the connection between raw material areas and packaging, preliminary processing and processing facilities; and have a mechanism to jointly control and manage quality.

On June 19, 2024, the Prime Minister issued Decision No. 534/QD-TTg approving the project: "Improving the effectiveness of the implementation of the Agreement on the application of sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS) of the World Trade Organization and SPS commitments within the framework of Free Trade Agreements".

Accordingly, the target orientation by 2030: The rate of national standards and national technical regulations on food safety quality of agriculture, forestry and fishery products equivalent to international standards will reach 100%; Strengthen the database connecting interactive information between cooperatives, enterprises, associations, unions, local management agencies and Vietnam's SPS system; 100% of food safety management officers and animal and plant quarantine officers at all levels will be trained and updated annually on professional knowledge. Once this goal is achieved, agricultural product export activities are forecasted to be smoother and achieve the set major goals.

Source: https://congthuong.vn/xuat-khau-nong-san-dung-de-vet-o-lam-hong-buc-tranh-sang-mau-366382.html