Exporting agricultural products: vegetable and cashew reached a peak while rice and rubber slid down

Chart of percentage of 8 major agricultural products groups for exporting in 2017. Sketched by T.Bình

From statistics by a major Vietnamese exporting group done by the General Department of Vietnam Customs, currently there are 8 agricultural product items including: vegetables, cashews, coffee, tea, peppers and rubbers.

In the beginning of the year 2018, continuing from last years upswing, many major agricultural products continued to grow satisfactorily. According to the latest statistics from the General Department of Vietnam Customs (up to 15/1), coffee has the largest turnover for agricultural products reaching $US 169 million, an increase of 16.55% over the same period in 2017.

Vegetables reached $US 160 million, increased by nearly 23%; Cashew was $US 128 million, increased by 47%; rice reached $US 124.7 million, increased by nearly 84.6%.

According to the General Department of Vietnam Customs, in 2017, the group of agricultural products reached a total value of $US 17.55 billion, increased by nearly 16% over the previous year, which marked a milestone in the development of exported agricultural products for Vietnam.

There were 4 items with high growth rates of over 20%, and 7 out of 8 items with an export turnover of over $US 1 billion last year. Only two commodities had a lower export value than the previous year, which were pepper (due to sharp fall in export prices) and coffee (due to reduction in export volume).

Notably, the export structure of agricultural products is changing dramatically. The export of rice and rubber are always leading items in the export value and have accounted for a high proportion of exported agricultural products for the whole country for many previous years. However, nowadays, with many new developments in the export of Vietnam's agricultural products, vegetables have become the leading item in that the export turnover of vegetables has surpassed rice and rubber and has become the second highest value in the agricultural product sector in 2017, second only to the leading group of cashew $US 17 million.

Thus, in just five years (from 2013 to 2017), the export turnover of vegetable exports has increased nearly 2.3 times from $US 1.073 billion to $US 3.5 billion.

The high increase in export of Vietnam vegetables is a result of deploying in the Chinese market. In 2017, the export of vegetables to this market increased sharply by 52%, achieved the value of $US 2.65 billion and accounted for nearly 76% of total export value of this product.

It should be mentioned that in 2017, thanks to the great effort of competent forces and localities, the stagnation of agricultural products at main border gates, such as Tan Thanh (Lang Son), Lao Cai ... was not as serious as in previous years. Hence, this has also helped facilitate the export of goods to China.

In 2017, the export value of cashew has grown remarkably. In 2013, the export turnover of this commodity reached nearly $US 1.644 billion, but by 2017 it was up nearly 114% to $US 3.517 billion. The largest export market for cashew is the United States with a value of $US 1.22 billion in 2017.

Thanks to strong growth, cashews and vegetables have surpassed rice, rubber and coffee in order to hold the leading position for exporting Vietnam’s agricultural products.