In the first two months of 2018, Vietnam earned more than 6 billion USD from the export of agricultural produce. The exports of rice, coffee, tea, cashew nut, vegetables, fruits, and cassava grew both in quantity and quality. The results are attributable to effective restructuring of crop and livestock production. Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Ha Cong Tuan said his Ministry will seek to raise growth targets: “We have reviewed measures toward higher growth targets. Next week, we will meet and then submit to the government our revised solutions. This year, we aim to achieve a growth rate of 3.05% against the set target of 3% and earn 40.5 billion USD from export instead of previous target of 38 billion USD.”

The Ministry is working to eliminate the “yellow card” imposed on Vietnam’s fisheries by the European Commission before the deadline April 23^rd. Nguyen Thi Phuong Dung, Deputy Director of the International Cooperation Department of the Directorate of Fisheries said that the revised Law on Fisheries has integrated the EC’s recommendations on preventing and fighting illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU). Ms Dung said: “The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has sent dispatches to the Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of National Defense requesting close coordination in implementing the Prime Minister’s Decree 45 on urgent measures to deal with the EC’s warnings on fighting illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. The Ministry has asked the fisheries surveillance force to increase patrols and monitoring at sea. It updates list of illegal fishing vessels on a monthly basis, increases the local administrations’ responsibilities, and cooperates with other countries which claim violations of fishing vessels.”

China, the US, the EU, ASEAN countries, Japan and South Korea continue to be Vietnam’s major agricultural export markets this year. The Ministry is undertaking drastic solutions including promoting incentives to lure more investment in agriculture, and strengthening the value chain in production, processing and consumption of agricultural products to achieve set targets.