Vietnam expects livestock products to join the list of products gaining billion-dollar export value, if Vietnam can sign an agreement on poultry-meat exports with China. — Vietnam News
HANOI: Vietnam expects the value of its agricultural exports to China to increase sharply this year, as China agrees to review regulations permitting official exports of poultry meat from Vietnam.
Last year, livestock products accounted for only 1% of the agricultural, forestry and fishery export value to China at US$12.2bil. That was mainly due to Vietnam not yet being permitted official exports of meat products to China.
Deputy Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Tran Thanh Nam said that with a market of 1.4 billion people, China’s consumer demand for meat products is up to about US$400bil per year, so the potential for exporting meat from Vietnam to China is many times higher than that of vegetables and fruits.
In the future, Vietnam expects livestock products to join the list of products gaining billion-dollar export value, if Vietnam can sign an agreement on poultry-meat exports with China, and continue to negotiate the protocol on pork exports to China, Nam said.
For many years, most of Vietnam’s livestock products including pork, beef, chicken and buffalo meat, have been under unofficial quotas at border crossings. This type of export has faced border barriers, and inspection and control according to stricter standards.
At present, Vietnam ships two products from its livestock industry to China, including bird’s nests and milk, under official exports according to protocols for exporting bird’s nest signed in 2022 and on exporting milk signed in 2019 between the two countries.
Thanks to the protocols, Vietnam’s exports of milk and milk products to China have grown rapidly in recent years. Those products have accounted for 93% of the total export value of Vietnam’s livestock products to China.
Tong Xuan Chinh, deputy director of the Livestock Production Department, said that in 2023, the export value of livestock products surged by 26.2% year-on-year to US$515mil.
Meanwhile, the import of livestock products reached US$3.53bil, down 4.4% compared to 2022. The export value of livestock products was only one-seventh of the import value of livestock products, and was also too low compared to other agricultural products, said Chinh.
Last year, Vietnam exported more than 34 million eggs, an increase of more than 3.1 times compared to 2022. In May 2023, Vietnam exported the first batches of eggs to South Korea.
On July 31, 2023, after a four-year ban, Vietnam’s eggs began shipping to Hong Kong again. The market immediately accounted for about 70% of eggs exported from Vietnam.
On Nov 2, 2023, Vietnam and Mongolia officially completed negotiations to export poultry meat and eggs to the Mongolian market.
According to the Livestock Production Department, in 2023, Vietnam exported 12,300 tonnes of pork, earning nearly US$63.3mil, an increase of 28% compared to 2022. Fresh, chilled or frozen pork products from Vietnam were shipped to Papua New Guinea, Laos and Malaysia.
Vietnam’s fresh milk exports in 2023 also grew by 1.7 times compared to 2022 to reach US$204mil. Fresh milk exports to China skyrocketed from US$48mil in 2022 to US$123mil in 2023.
Meanwhile, Vietnam has seven enterprises exporting 700kg of bird’s nests in total to China, after Vietnam gained permission for official exports of bird’s nests to China last year. — Viet Nam News/ANN
