Agriculture sector posts 2.39 percent in first half of 2019

Hanoi (VNA) - The agriculture sector posted a year-on-year growth of 2.39 percent in the first half of 2019, despite facing numerous difficulties like global economic slowdown, unfavourable weather, and the African swine fever.

In January-June, the total export value was estimated to reach 19.77 billion USD, up 2.2 percent.

Nguyen Van Viet, head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Planning Department, attributed the slow growth to a decline in prices of many key agricultural products compared to the same period last year, and a fall in export turnover to China.

Some key agricultural products seeing a drop in prices are peppercorn (26.5 percent), rubber (5.9 percent), cashew nuts (21.6 percent), coffee (11.8 percent), and rice (16.7 percent).

At the conference to review the sector’s performance in the first half of this year and deploy tasks the six remaining months held in Hanoi on June 28, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong urged the sector to focus on 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 and breeding sectors with a focus on livestock farming that, he said, should exert every effort to prevent the African swine fever to reduce losses and ensure the growth pace. The development of poultry and cattle in a sustainable manner is required.

To meet the goal for 2019, the cultivation sector will maintain rice output equal to that of 2018 while promoting the production of vegetables, fruits and industrial trees.

Meanwhile, the breeding sector will increase the development of poultry by 13-14 percent, production of eggs over 12 percent, beef 7.8 percent and seafood 6.5 percent.

The agriculture sector targets 43 billion USD in export value in 2019. - VNA