Agriculture & Food

Despite the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, Vietnam's exports of fruits and vegetables to China showed a positive growth trend in the first half of this year. From January to June this year, Vietnam’s total exports of fruits and vegetables exceeded US$2.063 billion, a year-on-year increase of 17.4%; total imports reached US$686 million, a year-on-year decrease of 16.6%. As a result, Vietnam has achieved a trade surplus of US$1.3 billion in fruits and vegetables. China, the United States, Japan and South Korea are the four largest export markets for Vietnam's fruits and vegetables. In the first five months of this year, Vietnam’s exports of fruits and vegetables to China totaled approximately US$1.05 billion, a year-on-year increase of 16.2%. The Import and Export Bureau of Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade stated that exports of fruits and vegetables to China accounted for 61.7% of Vietnam’s total exports. The positive growth of exports to the Chinese market will help promote the good performance of the Vietnamese fruit and vegetable industry.

Xu Ningning, executive director of the China-ASEAN Business Council, told reporters that Vietnam, as China's largest trading partner in ASEAN, has grown economic and trade cooperation against the trend since the epidemic. Fruit, as a product with stricter inspection and quarantine, has shown a substantial increase, indicating that China-Vietnam fruit trade has great potential for development. If the epidemic is over, Vietnam will release greater potential for fruit exports to China.

The progress made by China and Vietnam in inspection and quarantine cooperation has promoted the fruit trade between the two countries. For example, in June this year, the relevant departments of China and Vietnam reached an agreement on plant quarantine, which has contributed to simplifying the process and shortening the customs clearance time for exporting fresh fruits.

In contrast, although Vietnam's aquatic product exports in the first half of the year reached 865 million US dollars, an increase of 20% year-on-year, due to my country's stringent measures on imported frozen products to curb the new crown epidemic, Vietnam's aquatic product exports to China continued to decline. The Vietnam Aquatic Products Processing Export Association pointed out that many Vietnamese seafood exporters are currently exporting more dried and processed seafood to China to adapt to the new situation.