The conclusion of negotiations towards the signing of the Vietnam - Israel Free Trade Agreement (VIFTA) has opened up new and potential opportunities for Vietnam's exports, according to insiders.
The quantity of Vietnamese agricultural goods exported to China via border gates in the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai has witnessed a significant upswing this year, surpassing figures from previous years.
The Canadian Consulate yesterday said that Royal Seafood International Trade Company was the first company to import golden geoduck from Canada to Vietnam.
Vietnam saw a strong growth in both imports and exports in the first six months of the year. Exports in the first half of the year are estimated at US$185.5 bln, up by 17% compared to the same period in 2021.
After being heavily impacted by Covid-19 for two years, trade between Vietnam and the United Kingdom (UK) has recovered, reaching nearly US$6.6 billion at the end of 2021, up 17 percent from the previous year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
On the first days of the new year 2022, many businesses have accelerated production to meet orders of millions of US dollars. Many of them even have planned to expand their production scale to receive orders that are moving from countries in the region to Vietnam.
On the afternoon of January 4, the Ministry of Industry and Trade informed that after 1 year, the UK - Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (UKVFTA) took effect temporarily (from January 1, 2021) and took effect from May 1, 2021, Vietnam’s trade surplus of nearly US$ 4.5 billion to the UK.
The signing of many free trade agreements (FTAs) with other countries has helped several Vietnamese goods, including agricultural and aquatic products, open their doors widely to the world. In the opposite direction, the domestic market has also been importing a large volume of agricultural and fishery products from foreign countries, especially countries with trade relationships with Vietnam, creating more product diversity and more choices for consumers.
For four years, the Government and ministries, state agencies have encouraged Vietnamese fishermen to upgrade their fishing capacity and strictly observe international laws. Lately, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has directed that the fisheries industry try their best in 2021 to be lifted from the European Commission’s warning of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) a long time ago.
Many localities in the Mekong Delta are currently undergoing social distancing according to Directive No.16 of the Prime Minister, so trade activities of seafood products encounter difficulties, dragging prices down, causing many fishing boats to operate ineffectively. Besides, the fishing grounds are increasingly depleted, and oil prices are at a high level, so many fishing boats have decided to temporarily stop going to sea.
The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) and the World Bank (WB) in Vietnam on August 10 released “A Trade-Based Analysis of the Economic Impact of Non-Compliance with Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing: The Case of Vietnam”.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), the demand for Halal food in the world is increasing, not only among the Islamic community but also non-Muslims. The current global trade in Halal food is estimated at US$80 billion, accounting for about 12 percent of all global trade in agricultural and food products. This brings promising opportunities for enterprises importing and exporting agricultural products and foods in Vietnam.
On the morning of April 19, the office of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, informed the press that from April 21, Vietnam's products exported to the EU, such as poultry eggs, milk, meat, and seafood, will be checked more strictly, due to new regulations of the importing market.
Import tariffs on seafood exported into the EU from Vietnam will be reduced to zero percent as of August 1 this year when the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement officially takes effect.
According to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), due to impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, most enterprises have suffered a decline of 35-50 percent in export orders as they were canceled and delayed or faced a shortage of raw materials.
The office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on February 25 said that the Vietnamese delegation led by agricultural Deputy Minister Le Quoc Doanh has gone to the US to discuss strengthening agricultural trade cooperation between the two countries.
Vietnam has been the leading trading partner of Canada in the ASEAN region since 2015 and the agricultural foods and seafood accounting for most of bilateral trade.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in the first six months of this year, export value rose by 6.5 percent; total aquatic production reached 3.79 million tons, up 6.2 percent over the same period last year, of which wild fisheries production hit 1.88 million tons, up 5.4 percent; farmed fisheries production touched 1.92 million tons, up 7 percent.
After strongly increasing for a long time, the prices of raw pangasius fish in provinces in the Mekong Delta dropped to around VND23,000-VND25,000 per kilogram, at which farmers were only able to break even.
