Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong chairs the conference to review the agriculture sector’s performance in the first half of this year and deploy tasks the six remaining months. (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) - The agriculture sector posted a year-on-year growth of2.39 percent in the first half of 2019, despite facing numerous difficulties likeglobal economic slowdown, unfavourableweather, and the African swine fever.
In January-June, the total export value was estimated to reach 19.77 billionUSD, up 2.2 percent.
Nguyen Van Viet, head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s PlanningDepartment, attributed the slow growth to a decline in prices of many key agriculturalproducts compared to the same period last year, and a fall in export turnoverto China.
Some key agricultural products seeing a drop in prices are peppercorn (26.5percent), rubber (5.9 percent), cashew nuts (21.6 percent), coffee (11.8percent), and rice (16.7 percent).
At the conference to review the sector’s performance in the first half of thisyear and deploy tasks the six remaining months held in Hanoi on June 28, Ministerof Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong urged the sector to focuson areas that there is room for development such as forestry economy, and seafood,particularly aquaculture.
He underlined the need to accelerate the restructuring of the cultivation andbreeding sectors with a focus on livestock farming that, he said, should exertevery effort to prevent the African swine fever to reduce losses and ensure thegrowth pace. The development of poultry and cattle in a sustainable manner isrequired.
To meet the goal for 2019, the cultivation sector will maintain rice outputequal to that of 2018 while promoting the production of vegetables, fruits andindustrial trees.
Meanwhile, the breeding sector will increase the development of poultry by13-14 percent, production of eggs over 12 percent, beef 7.8 percent and seafood6.5 percent.
The agriculture sector targets 43 billion USD in export value in 2019. - VNA
VNA
