Largest US agricultural trade delegation visits Vietnam to explore cooperation opportunities

This marks the largest-ever agricultural trade mission from the US to Vietnam and is led by Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Alexis Taylor, in celebration of the one-year anniversary of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between Vietnam and the US.

During a press briefing in Hanoi on September 12, Under Secretary Taylor noted that this is her second visit to Vietnam in two years. The mission aims to connect with key importers via business-to-business meetings and to gain insights into local and regional market conditions through site visits and discussions with industry experts and government officials in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

In response to the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reporter’s question about the significance of the visit for the two countries’ bilateral cooperation, Taylor said: “It really underscores the interest of the US food and agriculture sector in the Vietnamese market.”

She continued that Vietnam and the US have complementary agricultural trade, with many fruits that the US exports to Vietnam consist of products that cannot be produced locally, and the same goes for the tropical fruits that Vietnam exports to the US.

“And so for all of the interests of our food and agricultural businesses in the Vietnamese market, I think there is equal interest for Vietnamese products in the US market,” she said.

Asked about how the US can support Vietnam in developing green and sustainable agriculture, the Under Secretary affirmed that this has long been a priority in the two countries’ relations, both at the national and federal levels, and the two countries have engaged in multiple international forums around climate change resilience.

Vietnam is an active participant in the agriculture, food security and climate change (AFC) innovation, and the sustainable productivity growth coalition, she said.

“We also have bilateral program going on to help Vietnam’s agricultural sector provide more resiliency. We have a fertilizer right initiative which is focused on efficient fertilizer use and really trying to lower methane emissions, and the project is focused on the Mekong region.”

She revealed that during her meeting with Vietnamese government officials today, there is a long list of other areas of cooperation under the climate umbrella that the two countries are going to explore.

Sharing more about this, Karen Ross, Secretary of California Department of Food and Agriculture, said the US has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with Vietnam, including the most recently signed Memorandum of Understanding on climate change resilience and smart agriculture.

“This gives us the opportunity to create forums, which we can do virtually now, but especially allows us to engage our university, the University of California, which has a number of people here already working on livestock methane reductions," she said, adding that this is one of the examples of how the two sides can bring academia together to extend the knowledge to farmers, with demonstration projects and technical assistance to help all farmers be more successful.

According to the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the US became Vietnam's largest market for agricultural, forestry, and fishery products over the past eight months of 2024.

In the reviewed period, the products brought home about 8.58 billion USD from the US market. The figure accounted for 21.4% of Vietnam’s total exports in this sector, marking a 23.5% increase compared to the same period last year./.