Extending the export 'miracle'

Agricultural and aquatic product exports are a "bright spot" in the impressive economic growth picture in the first nine months of 2024.

Workers working in a seafood processing factory for export - Photo: THE KIET

Farmers growing rice, durian, coffee, and pepper in the West and Central Highlands are "ecstatic" after a bumper crop, with good harvests and good prices.

Value export The entire agricultural sector in the first 10 months reached a record of nearly 52 billion USD, an increase of more than 20% over the same period last year. It is forecasted that agricultural product exports could reach 62 billion USD this year.

Exports of agricultural and aquatic products are a "bright spot" in the impressive economic growth picture in the first nine months of 2024. Domestic enterprises have better exploited potential markets such as Europe to export vegetables, tubers, and fruits. Vietnamese rice exported to some traditional markets also has a relatively high price.

Not only agricultural products, export turnover in the first nine months of the year also shows that this is an important growth driver of the economy. In total, the export turnover of goods in the first nine months reached nearly 300 billion USD, an increase of 15.4% over the same period last year. Of which, there were 30 items with a value of over 1 billion USD, seven export items reached over 10 billion USD.

With 16 free trade agreements (FTAs) that Vietnam has participated in and three FTAs under negotiation, domestic goods, agricultural and aquatic products have the opportunity to be exported around the world , especially to key markets such as the US, EU, Japan and China.

The opportunities for export are huge, many markets have opened, but to increase the export value of agricultural products, domestic goods must dominate the market, affirm the position of Vietnamese goods on foreign supermarket shelves with quality, brand, design and a clear geographical indication.

Along with that, domestic production must shift to green production, the production process must be environmentally friendly so that exported products can increase their value and overcome technical environmental barriers from demanding markets such as the EU and the US.

Agricultural exports in 2025 will continue the positive growth momentum of this year, but exports of the footwear and textile industries are showing more expectations. The context of Bangladesh - a rival of Vietnam - is in a state of crisis, if the domestic textile and footwear industry seizes the opportunity, it will bring great export value.

Recently, many large domestic textile and garment enterprises have made efforts to green their production to gradually meet the new standards of demanding and potential customers such as the US and EU.

But the problem with Vietnam's textile and garment export industry is that we must make more efforts to master the production and supply chain, especially in the dyeing and weaving sector, to avoid the possibility of being imposed additional barriers by demanding markets, including the issue of Chinese goods moving to Vietnam for production to avoid taxes.

There needs to be an early solution to deal with the possibility that the US and EU will control the flow of imports from China to Vietnam for export to the EU and US. To do so, domestic textile and footwear manufacturing enterprises must be more self-sufficient and have products with clearer origins.

In the third and fourth quarters of this year, the signs of improvement in the textile, garment and footwear industries are very clear. Hopefully, this will be the sector that will further compensate for the growth momentum of production serving exports alongside high-tech products, machinery, electronic equipment, etc.

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