Customers shop for pork at a supermarket in Hanoi. (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi - Vietnam is now one of the world's top 10 countries for pork consumption, latest statistics have revealed.

Over the past two months of this year, the country spent 18.69 million USD on importing over 8,400 tonnes of chilled or frozen pork, marking a yearly decline of 1 per cent in value but 4.2 per cent rise in volume, according to the General Department of Vietnam Customs.

In the same period, the country imported 105,000 tonnes of meat and meat products, with a value of 213.2 million USD, up 44 per cent in volume and 39 per cent in value year-on-year, the department said.

India was the largest supplier of meat and meat products for Vietnam, accounting for nearly 30 per cent of the country's total import volume. In the reviewed period, Vietnam's meat and meat product imports from India reached over 31,000 tonnes, worth 94.62 million USD, surging 58 per cent in volume and 73 per cent in value over the same period in 2023.

Meanwhile, Vietnam's imports of meat and meat products from most markets increased over the last year's same period such as Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia and Australia, the department noted.

The sharp increase in imports of all kinds of meat has created enormous pressure on the domestic livestock industry. Recently, four associations issued warnings about super-cheap meat imports and smuggled meat products flooding into the domestic market, and at the same time proposing the Prime Minister to control imported meat.

They also petitioned the Prime Minister to direct departments and ministries to urgently build technical barriers and trade policies to minimise the official import of livestock products.

Top priorities should be given to strengthening quarantine measures, quality inspection and minimising the number of border gates allowed to import live livestock into Vietnam, they suggested.

In 2023, the pork consumption per capita in Vietnam amounted to about 27.7 kilos per person, according to data and business intelligence platform Statista.

By 2029, the pork consumption per capita is forecasted to reach about 32.72 kilos per person annually in the country, it said.