March 8, 2012

Vietnam's 2012 farm produce exports unlikely to earn US$25 billion

Experts from the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development said at a conference Tuesday (Mar 6) that Vietnam is unlikely to earn US$25 billion from exports of agricultural, forestry and seafood products this year.

The country will face decreased demand from import countries due to financial difficulties, said Dr. Nguyen Do Anh Tuan, director of the institute's Centre for Agricultural Policy.

Tuan added that the country will have to compete with an increased number of producers such as Ethiopia (coffee), South Africa (rice) and Myanmar (aquaculture products).

Epidemics such as foot-and-mouth disease, blue eared pig disease and bird flu, would also continue threatening productivity, Tuan said.

Dang Kim Son, general director of the institute, said that key commodities such as rice and coffee were still facing unstable supply as farmers focus on short-term markets alone, thus suffering big losses.

Tuan noted that Vietnam's farm produce exports hit record high of US$25 billion last year, mostly driven by the rising export prices.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has estimated that the country earned US$3.6 billion from exports of agricultural, forestry and seafood products in the first two months of this year, almost unchanged from the same period last year.

The nation targets its exports of farm produce, forestry, and seafood products to hit US$40 billion by 2020. Currently, some 70% of Vietnam's population of 86 million people lives in the countryside, but the agricultural, forestry and aquaculture sector contributed only 0.66 percentage points to the country's economic growth of 5.89% last year.