Conference overview. Photo: B.H

According to the latest information from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the GDP growth rate of the agricultural sector in the first six months of 2022 is expected to reach 2.7% - 2.8%. In which, agriculture, forestry and seafood scored an increase of 2.2%, 4.8% and 4.05%, respectively.

Speaking at the conference on a preliminary review of the agricultural sector in the first six months of the year and implementation of the plan for the last 6 months of 2022 in the afternoon of June 28, Mr. Nguyen Van Viet, Director of the Planning Department (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) evaluated that total export turnover from agriculture, forestry and fishery exports in the first six months of the year reached $27.88 billion, up 13.9% year on year.

The main group of agricultural products reached $11.37 billion, up 8.8%; main forest products reached $9.1 billion, up 3%; seafood reached $5.8 billion, up 40.8%; livestock production reached $176 million, down 15.9%; production input reached $1.42 billion, up 64.8%.

Given the reasons for such positive results, Mr. Viet analyzed: in addition to boosting production, the agricultural sector also actively researches, forecasts, and takes advantage of opportunities from free trade agreements (FTAs) to promote agricultural exports.

The units promote online advertising for products that have been opened and officially exported to major markets such as China, the United States, the EU, Russia, and Brazil; at the same time, potential markets such as Japan, Korea, ASEAN, Australia, New Zealand, and the Middle East are also well exploited.

In the first half of the year, seafood industry obtained the highest export growth rate in the entire agriculture, forestry and fishery industry. Photo: N.Thanh

Speaking more on seafood products, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien said that in the past time, exports face many challenges due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic and high gasoline prices affecting the exploitation of aquatic products.

However, the weather at sea being relatively favorable and the effective implementation of the FTAs have created a driving force contributing to bringing the total seafood output in the first half of this year to about 4.2 million tons, up 2. 5% over the same period in 2021. In particular, aquaculture has grown quite strongly with 7.4%.

Besides the achieved results, Mr. Viet also pointed out the remaining limitations, such as trade promotion activities and market opening negotiations of the agricultural sector that have not really met the requirements especially in implementing via online.

"Typically, there have been congestion of agricultural product vehicles through the northern border gates, causing many difficulties for production, business and farmers," Viet said.

Besides, agricultural production faces difficulties because input materials depend on imports from abroad; prices of feed and fertilizer increased.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the domestic economy is bounced back, the growth forecast is quite optimistic in 2022. Seizing this opportunity, the agricultural sector continues to promote restructuring towards the development of ecological agriculture, a modern, circular economy; restructuring of crops and livestock, freeing up resources for the development of production, processing and consumption of agricultural products; focusing on removing difficulties and obstacles, minimizing negative impacts of the epidemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

The whole industry sets a target of GDP growth rate of 2.8 - 3% in 2022 (the Government assigned 2.5 - 2.8%). In detail, the production value of the whole industry is hoped to increase by 2.9 - 3.1%; the increase of some key products is estimated as: live pork production over 4.2 million tons; poultry meat output over 1.9 million tons; aquatic product output over 8.7 million tons; logging output over 18 million m3; export turnover of agricultural, forestry and fishery products about $55 billion.

In order to achieve the goal of total export turnover of about $55 billion in 2022 (higher than the Government's allocation of $5 billion), the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has determined that it is necessary to implement solutions to affect key export products with high potential and ability to increase export value to compensate for the products that are expected to fail to meet the export turnover target for the whole year.

Specifically, main agricultural products reached $25 billion; forest products and furniture reached $17 billion; seafood reached $10 billion; other items reached about $3 billion.