Despite suffering the negative impacts caused by the epidemic and natural disasters, the national agriculture sector still managed to experience positive growth during the first six months of the year, with GDP for the sector in the first quarter enjoying a 0.08% rise from last year with the aim to beat the export target of US$41 billion.

The production value of agriculture, forestry and fishery recorded growth, of which forestry increased by 5.13%, fishery rose by 2.85%, and cultivation with a slight jump of 0.12%, with only the animal husbandry sector suffering a loss as it dropped by 3.62%.

The total export turnover of agriculture-forestry-fishery during the first half of the year reached an estimated US$18.81 billion, down 3.4% from the corresponding period in 2019.

Some agro-forestry-fishery products were still able to maintain growth momentum, such as coffee at US$1.6 billion, up 1.2%, rice at US$1.7 billion, representing a rise of 17.9%, and vegetables at US$384, an increase of 19.5%. A number of commodities whose export turnover suffered a fall during the reviewed period included rubber, tea, pepper, catfish, and shrimp.

Most notably, China, the United States, Japan, and the Republic of Korea kept their place as the four largest markets for Vietnamese agricultural, forestry and fishery products.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong affirmed that the agricultural sector has been facing up to the "double risk" of fighting the dual impact of both the epidemic and natural disasters. Despite this, it remains imperative to devise a range of solutions in order to iron out snags and fulfill all of the set targets during the remainder of the year.

The agricultural sector must therefore go on to accomplish the goal set for food production, thereby sufficiently providing approximately 43.5 million tonnes of rice for 100 million citizens.

This should be done whilst exporting between 6.5 and 6.7 million tonnes of rice, the Minister said while underlining the need to ensure domestic food demand and meet the export value target of approximately US$42 billion in the future.