In 2024, despite facing many difficulties and challenges, including strong impacts from market fluctuations, severe hot weather, drought, storms in the Central Highlands and Central regions, saline intrusion in the southern provinces and cities; especially storm No. 3 (Yagi) which caused severe damage to agricultural production in the northern provinces... the agricultural sector has overcome difficulties and challenges to promote production development in both scale and production level.
In 2024, the total export turnover of agriculture, forestry and fishery products is estimated to reach a record high of 62.4 billion USD, an increase of 18.5% compared to 2023.
In order to look back at a turbulent year 2024 with the impact of natural disasters, assess the potential, opportunities and challenges of Vietnam's agriculture, forestry and fishery in 2025, on December 19, Nong Thon Ngay Nay/Dan Viet Newspaper in coordination with the Office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development organized an online discussion with the theme: "Agricultural product exports in 2024 - New record, new position".
Record high agricultural, forestry and fishery exports
In 2024, the total export turnover of agricultural, forestry and fishery products is estimated to reach a record high of 62.4 billion USD, an increase of 18.5% compared to 2023, and the trade surplus continues to reach a new record of 18.6 billion USD, an increase of 53.1%.
This is the result of efforts to change thinking and structure of the agricultural sector towards increasing value and green transformation; the result of negotiations and opening markets for many key agricultural products, typically durian, coconut, bird's nest, etc.
Talking about the industry's outstanding achievements in the past year, Mr. Nguyen Quang Hieu, Deputy Director of the Plant Protection Department (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) emphasized: It can be said that the 11-month summary figure of agricultural, forestry and fishery exports is quite surprising, just counting the 11 months, the export turnover of vegetables and fruits alone has exceeded the whole year of 2023 by 1 billion USD, very impressive. The summary figure of vegetable and fruit export turnover 2 years ago was only 3.4 billion USD, up to now this number has doubled. That reflects the whole process of development and market opening, not just the results in one or two years.
Mr. Nguyen Quang Hieu, Deputy Director of the Plant Protection Department (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) affirmed: It can be said that the 11-month summary figure of agricultural, forestry and fishery exports is quite surprising, counting only 11 months, the export turnover of vegetables and fruits alone has exceeded the whole year of 2023 by 1 billion USD.
“It takes us an average of 3-5 years to negotiate market opening for a product. For products with technical requirements, the time required is longer, for example durian, to be able to grow impressively like today, the time to negotiate market opening takes a lot. Since 2016, 2017, we have built a technical profile and gone through many steps and many negotiation stages to get the results like today,” Mr. Hieu shared.
According to the Deputy Director of the Plant Protection Department, the success of agricultural exports is due not only to the contribution of the products but also to the capacity of specialized agencies, and an important factor is the awareness of production and export units that have complied with regulations in the role of maintaining and expanding the market. "We hope that agricultural exports will continue to maintain growth in the coming time," Mr. Hieu shared.
The challenges
Despite many achievements in the export of agricultural, forestry and fishery products, in 2024, export markets will continuously announce changes in regulations on food safety and animal and plant disease safety in the import of agricultural, forestry and fishery products.
Sharing about this issue, Mr. Ngo Xuan Nam, Deputy Director of the National Information and Enquiry Point for Hygiene, Epidemiology and Quarantine of Animals and Plants of Vietnam (SPS Vietnam) said: We are very proud of Vietnam's agriculture, however, to enter demanding markets is a problem and a process of effort. We want to export not only based on quantity and quality of products but also must meet the regulations of the markets. With products, we have to spend many years negotiating and making efforts of many units to achieve the regulations of the new market opening and exporting products.
According to Mr. Nam, the export situation in 2024, as well as many previous years, is considered a common trend in the world. Most members of the WTO as well as other markets have many regulations on product imports. Not all regulations are strict, or some countries have loosened regulations... But how to access food safety regulations, this is mandatory. That is why the WTO has established a food safety committee.
Mr. Ngo Xuan Nam, Deputy Director of the SPS Office, affirmed: In 2024, the markets issued 1,029 notices on food safety, on average the SPS office had to issue 3 notices per day, some notices were hundreds of pages long.
According to statistics from the SPS Office, in 2024, markets issued 1,029 food safety notifications, with the SPS Office issuing an average of 3 notifications per day, with some notifications running to hundreds of pages. Regulations on pesticide residues for other products, such as dragon fruit, coffee, etc., are different.
Faced with that change, the Prime Minister issued a decision to direct the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and other ministries and localities to immediately implement it to ensure compliance with regulations for smooth export of products. Immediately after that, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development approved Decision 2998 (Decision 2998/QD-BNN-CCPT Implementation Plan of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to implement the SPS Project), and so far most localities have promptly taken action.
“Despite such market changes, we have intervened promptly. Most businesses and farmers have responded, only a few have not yet approached or fully understood, but this is the “bad apple enriching the barrel”, we need to propagate, continue to mobilize and require these cases to change to meet regulations in production and export”, Mr. Nam emphasized.
Expectations for 2025
At the seminar on opportunities in 2025 to increase the export value of agricultural, forestry and fishery products, managers and experts all agreed: There are many opportunities but also great challenges.
The year 2025 has many opportunities and challenges in increasing the export value of agricultural, forestry and fishery products.
Mr. Ngo Xuan Nam expressed concern when the SPS Office regularly received warnings.
According to Mr. Nam, we have achieved a record in exports but we also need a breakthrough in quality for sustainable development.
"With the goal of Vietnam becoming the kitchen of the world, we have tried to increase output but cannot forget about quality. These two issues must always go hand in hand. In particular, farmers - the direct production force - need to pay special attention to this issue. If we are too absorbed in growth, we will not be careful to fall into the trap of chasing output. Regarding the trend in the coming time, we are currently perfecting and upgrading the SPS of the ASEAN region, SPS with China, SPS with Canada..." Mr. Nam emphasized.
According to the Deputy Director of the Vietnam SPS Office, most of the SPS contents are increasingly improved, the story of food safety will be a story in which countries are increasingly improving quality. This will be an inevitable trend of the world.
“The two trains must run parallel to each other, it cannot be otherwise. Hopefully in 2025, exports will have many new things, but the most important thing is to set a record for quality,” Mr. Nam shared.
According to nhandan.vn
Source: https://baophutho.vn/xuat-khau-nong-lam-thuy-san-nam-2024-ky-luc-moi-vi-the-moi-224911.htm
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