Agro-fishery-forestry exports may fail to reach yearly target

Vietnam’s agro-fishery-forestry exports in 2015 may attain 95 percent of the set target, said an official at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s regular press conference on October 6 to review the sector’s nine-month results and set forth tasks for this month.

According to Pham Cong Dung, Head of the ministry’s Department of Salt and Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery Products Processing and Trade, the agricultural sector set a target of 32 billion USD in export turnover this year.

However, an increase in the price of US dollars, changes in the foreign exchange rates of several strong currencies – particularly Euros – which detrimentally affected export businesses and high inventory of agricultural products of Vietnam’s key importers all posed difficulties for the country’s exports.

From January-September, the total export turnover of agro-fishery-forestry products was estimated at nearly 21.7 billion USD, down 5 percent from the same period last year.

In the period, exports of main agricultural products and aquaculture products were valued at 10.3 billion USD and 4.7 billion USD, down 7.2 percent and 17.8 percent, respectively, while the export turnover of wood and forest products reached 5.03 billion USD, a year-on-year rise of 6.6 percent.

Dung hoped that the completion of negotiations on and the signing of free trade agreements and the Trans-Pacific Partnership would help increase Vietnam’s agro-fishery-forestry exports in the near future.

To that end, the ministry will also organise more trade promotion activities and continue negotiations towards market openings for several agricultural products, such as dragon fruit to Japan and chicken to Russia.-VNA