Promoting production and consumption of agricultural products for farmers

To promote the production and consumption of agricultural, forestry and fisheries products during the 2016-2020 period, coordination among relevant authorities is needed to bring benefit to farmers.

 

In particular, aimed at removing difficulties and expanding agricultural markets in the last two months of 2016 and the first six months of 2017, the Ministries of Industry and Trade and Agriculture and Rural Development have recently signed a memorandum of understanding on strengthening collaboration during the 2016-2020 period.

In recent times, although the domestic and world markets are more volatile, thanks to the coordination between the two above-mentioned ministries, as well as their subordinate units and other associations and businesses, Vietnam’s exports of agricultural, forestry and fisheries products have seen remarkable results, with the total export value of agricultural, forestry and fisheries in the first ten months of 2016 reaching US$26.4 billion—up 6.3% over the same period of last year, while enjoying a trade surplus of US$6.4 billion, up 15.6%.

However, as the general situation of global exports continues to decline due to low demand, the main export markets of Vietnam tend to return to focus on the domestic market, leading to protectionism for domestic production with non-tariff barriers increasingly tightened, limiting the advantages of tariff preferences for agricultural, forestry and fisheries products that Vietnam has enjoyed thanks to bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements.

 

Therefore, to support the agricultural in reaching a total agricultural, forestry and fisheries export value of US$31 billion and a surplus of US$8 billion this year, the two ministries should strengthen exchanges of information, remove non-tariff barriers and open their markets.

 

They should also actively coordinate in developing plans for market access negotiations in free trade agreements while implementing trade defence measures and coordinating on the deployment of trade promotion programmes to expand and look for new markets.

 

For the domestic market, the two ministries should jointly hold activities connecting supply and demand for consumption and stabilising the market, strengthen the fight against smuggling and quality controls for agricultural, forestry, fisheries products and agricultural materials, and synchronously invest in electrification projects in rural and agricultural areas to meet the requirements of agricultural irrigation.

 

At the same time, they should continue to call for investment in the field of agricultural product processing, strengthen the management and development of craft villages and direct locales in effectively implementing measures to promote the production and consumption of agricultural, forestry and fisheries products with an eye to improving productivity, quality and added value in the framework of an agricultural restructuring scheme approved by the Government.

 

(Source: NDO)