Vietnam China signs memorandum of understanding on cooperation in agriculture and fruit sales

On August 2, Vietnam fruit and vegetable association and Guangxi ASEAN Economic and Trade Promotion Association signed a memorandum of cooperation on agriculture and fruit sales at the 2021 China Vietnam agricultural products (fruits and vegetables) online promotion and exchange meeting, so as to continuously promote the trade of agricultural products between the two countries during the epidemic.

It is reported that China is Vietnam's largest trading partner and second largest import market (second only to the United States), while Vietnam has always maintained China's position as the largest trading partner in ASEAN. However, Vietnam has only 9 kinds of fruits, such as pitaya, watermelon, litchi, longan, banana, mango, jackfruit, red bean and Mangosteen, and are exported to China through official channels. On this basis, the Vietnamese Ministry of agriculture and rural development is trying to pave the way for other fruits, including durian, grapefruit, passion fruit, avocado and coconut, to enter the Chinese market. It is understood that China has temporarily approved the import of sweet potato and pepper from Vietnam.

In recent years, the trade of agricultural products between China and Vietnam has shown a good development trend. However, influenced by COVID-19, bilateral agricultural trade in 2020 dropped by more than 4% compared with the same period last year, only 14 billion 300 million US dollars. Among them, Vietnam's export of fruits and vegetables to China was US $1.8 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 25.7%. In the first half of 2021, Vietnam's fruit and vegetable exports to China gradually recovered, with a total export volume of US $1.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 16%. It is worth mentioning that Vietnam is the 17th largest exporter of agricultural products in the world and the second largest exporter of ASEAN. At present, China is the largest export market of Vietnamese fruits and vegetables, accounting for more than 64% of Vietnam's total exports of fruits and vegetables. It can be seen that the trade of agricultural products between the two countries has broad prospects and great potential. The newly signed memorandum of understanding will become a good platform for Vietnamese enterprises and associations to coordinate with relevant Chinese departments, associations and enterprises to continuously promote bilateral agricultural product production, processing and trade cooperation under the impact of the epidemic.