Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam’s agricultural sector is on track to achieve the 100 billion USD export milestone in the 2026-2030 period, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Environment Phung Duc Tien has affirmed.
In his opening remarks at Vietstock 2025, the largest international livestock, feed, and meat processing exhibition in Vietnam, held in Ho Chi Minh City on October 8, Tien underscored the foundational role of agriculture in ensuring food security and stabilising the macroeconomy.
In January – September, Vietnam’s agro-forestry-fishery export reached 52.31 billion USD, with livestock products contributing 447.5 million USD, an 18.6% increase year-on-year.
Livestock has emerged as an important growth factor within the sector, contributing between 25 and 27% to the sector’s GDP and serving as a vital source of livelihood for 6.5 million farming households. Over more than eight decades of development, Vietnam now ranks fifth globally in pig herd size, sixth in pork output, and second in poultry, and leads Southeast Asia in industrial animal feed production.
By late September, the national pig herd was only 0.6% smaller than a year earlier, yet total pork output still rose 4.6% to over 4 million tonnes. Poultry herds grew 3.7%, with meat production up 5.6% to 1.9 million tonnes.
According to Tien, the veterinary sector has also achieved notable breakthroughs, most prominently becoming the first country to successfully produce an African swine fever vaccine. Vietnamese veterinary drugs are now shipped to more than 45 countries, earning hundreds of millions of USD.
With such a foundation, livestock exports are set to expand even further in the coming years, he stressed.
However, Tien acknowledged challenges in the husbandry sector, including disease, climate change, small-scale farming, heavy dependence on imported materials, shortage of modern slaughtering facilities, and limited intensive processing capabilities. The sector needs to better manage its data, origin traceability, and market forecast.
The Deputy Minister laid stress on the significance of science – technology and digital transformation, calling them a key to promote the sector’s sustainable development, productivity, and competitiveness in the international market.
He urged the sector to focus on large-scale and high-tech development, environmental sustainability, and enhanced slaughtering and processing capacity.
Spanning more than 13,000 square metres at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center (SECC), Vietstock 2025 hosts over 300 exhibitors and attracts more than 13,000 industry professionals from 40 countries. The event, running from October 8 to 10, is the largest of its kind ever held in Vietnam.
Beyond its impressive scale, Vietstock 2025 serves as a vital platform connecting the entire livestock value chain — from breeding and feed production to processing and distribution. The exhibition not only highlights Vietnam’s growing influence in regional agriculture.
This year's event features more than 80 specialised seminar sessions addressing critical industry topics including antibiotic resistance, pig and poultry farming, dairy cattle management, waste management, nutrition and animal feed, animal health and welfare, egg value chains, and livestock emission control.
A key highlight of Vietstock 2025 is the roundtable conference of the Southeast Asian livestock and veterinary associations on October 9, bringing together seven associations from Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Myanmar to discuss regional development trends, opportunities and challenges of the husbandry sector./.
