Vietnamese authorities move to facilitate farm produce exports to China

Trucks carrying goods pass the Tan Thanh border gate in the northern province of Lang Son. (Photo: VNA)

A Vietnamese delegation led by Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Tran Thanh Nam has visited and held meetings with the administrations and customs departments of China’s Guangxi and Yunnan provinces in an effort to facilitate farm produce exports via northern border gates of Vietnam.

The move was to implement the Prime Minister’s Official Dispatch No 492/CD-TTg, dated May 31, 2023 that demands urgent measures be taken to ease congestion and promote agricultural product exports via the northern border gates.

At separate talks, the Vietnamese delegation, including officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), the General Department of Vietnam Customs, and some provinces with large exports to and border gates with China, and the administrations of Guangxi and Yunnan agreed to order customs and quarantine units of their respective border gates frequently share information about customs clearance procedures and give priority to the fresh produce entering in the harvest season to reduce congestion and boost farm produce trade via border gates of the Chinese provinces.

The two sides agreed to hold annual cross-border trade promotion fairs in Guangxi, Yunnan, and adjacent Vietnamese provinces on a rotational basis to create more partnership chances to their businesses.

They concurred to promote the establishment of the Vietnam - Guangxi and Vietnam - Yunnan associations of agricultural product businesses.

They also decided to assign relevant units to compile a memorandum of understanding on agricultural cooperation between the MARD and the Guangxi and Yunnan administrations. The MoU is expected to be signed at the China - ASEAN Expo this September.

At the meetings with the two Chinese provinces’ customs departments, Vietnamese and Chinese officials reached consensus on some measures to improve customs clearance capacity such as increasing the prioritised businesses, applying the one-stop-shop model to export and import, exchanging the forms of quarantine certificates, and considering the pilot implementation of a smart border gate system.

Both sides will also assign units to act as liaison bodies to tackle bottlenecks in customs clearance for agro-forestry-aquatic products in a timely manner, and hold rotational annual meetings in every November between the Guangxi and Yunnan customs departments, the MARD, and relevant agencies of Vietnam to review cooperation results in a year and set up orientations for the following year.

They agreed to propose the Chinese General Administration of Customs to permit more fruits and aquatic products of Vietnam to enter this country, licence more Vietnamese exporters of agricultural and aquatic products, and allow raw aquatic products to be exported via border gates of Yunnan.

During the Vietnamese delegation’s visit, a business matching forum also took place, connecting 17 major agricultural and aquatic product companies of Vietnam with almost 120 Chinese firms./.