US pushes food exports to Vietnam

US Deputy Chief of Mission McClelland makes a speech at the expo.

The statement was made by the US Deputy Chief of Mission McClelland at a US food and beverage show held in Hanoi on November 29.

The event drew the participation of 15 US enterprises to advertise food and beverage products as well as seek Vietnamese importers.

According to McClelland, the US agricultural relationship with Vietnam had grown significantly over the past 10 years, from US$1 billion in exports in 2008 to US$3 billion in 2017.

“Much of the credit for this growth goes to food businesses and myriad stakeholders that aim to bring safe US food and beverage products to consumers in Vietnam,” McClelland added.

Talking about the difficulties US food products faced entering the Vietnamese market, Francis Lee, director of United Base Company Limited, said previously, importers in Vietnam always compared prices and the US food was often more expensive than others. However, in the past few years, people had concentrated more on the quality and safety of products rather than price alone.

“Vietnam’s economy has started to grow, and there are a number of Vietnamese people now willing to pay higher prices for better quality and for expensive products. For example, US cherry exports to Vietnam have increased spectacularly from 1,000 boxes in the summer of 2011 to 200,000 boxes in 2018,” Lee told the English-language daily Viet Nam News of the Vietnam News Agency.