Opportunities to increase agricultural exports to the EU

​Global GAP pepper of Cam My district has exported well to the European market. Photo taken by: Phan Anh

Vietnam is the first developing country in Asia - Pacific region to have EVFTA agreement with EU. The EU is currently one of Vietnam's leading trading partners with a two-way trade turnover of US $ 56.45 billion in 2019, of which export reached US $ 41.5 billion.

Golden opportunity for agricultural exports

The EU currently has 27 countries, but the overall market is larger because there are more members not participating in the union. The EU's economy is quite stable and is on the rise.

Mr. Willem Schoustra, Agriculture Counselor in charge of Vietnam and Thailand, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Vietnam affirmed that the EVFTA Agreement between the EU and Vietnam in force will be a "golden" opportunity for export of Vietnam, helping to diversify markets and export commodities, especially agricultural and aquatic products as well as Vietnamese goods which have many competitive advantages.

This agreement will also create favorable conditions for businesses to expand export markets, participate in the value chain as well as global production networks. According to businesses, Vietnam's strong agricultural products are well exported to the EU market including: seafood, vegetables, rice, cashew, coffee, pepper ... Anh this is a great opportunity to enter the EU in the near future because EVFTA has the highest level of commitment that a partner for Vietnam of the trade agreements has been signed.

Specifically, 99% of import tariff lines between the two sides are eliminated within 7-10 years; especially for agricultural products. The implementation of EVFTA is also an opportunity to increase investment attraction from the EU to Vietnam with technology transfer and improvement of management and labor skills.

Changes to access difficult market 

The EU market has a great demand for importing fresh fruits, especially dragon fruits. Photo of harvesting dragon fruits in Trang Bom district. Photo taken by: Phan Anh

Assessing the EU market, Ms. Mirjam Boekestijn, Director of the International Food Project (Netherlands) emphasized, can summarize the EU market in two phrases, this is a very potential and very competitive market. pictures. To enter the EU market, you must prepare very carefully for high quality and stability. For example, EU importers often require agricultural products to be certified with GlobalGAP. But not only do they have this certification, they also consider sustainability such as whether the export partner takes care of the lives of workers, the environment, depreciation and wastes in production…

Mrs. Mirjam Boekestijn additionally noticed: “The EU has a quick warning system, for example, a product imported into the Netherlands with quality problems will be updated to the entire EU system and all countries of this market will not import those products anymore.”

Sharing the same view, Mr. Jos Leeters, Director of Bureau Leeters Company (Netherlands), a marketing and trade expert in the field of crop production, shared that Vietnamese agricultural products are likely to go further when participating in the world market. gender thanks to the advantage of diversity as well as the quality of fruit. But given the current situation, Vietnamese agricultural products are only capable of exporting to markets that are not too fastidious like China. But to export well into markets such as the US, EU, Japan ... it is necessary to develop chains of agricultural products that are not only of quality but also of stability. Here, the role of exporting enterprises is very important. They must also change their awareness of food safety management and monitoring, from final product inspection to monitoring hazards throughout the entire production chain.

Phan Anh

In order to increase exports of agricultural products to the EU market when the EVFTA Agreement comes into effect, the Government has a lot of programs to support businesses in promoting agricultural exports to this market. In particular, support for farmers and businesses to invest in logistics, post-harvest, logistics ... are very interested.