Vietnam’s agricultural sector earned $53.22 billion from exports in 2022, up 9.3% year-on-year, while many sub-sectors posted record-high figures.
The sector recorded a trade surplus of $8.5 billion, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Seven products with export revenues exceeding $3 billion included wood and wooden products with $10.92 billion, prawns ($4.33 billion), coffee ($3.94 billion), rice ($3.49 billion), rubber ($3.31 billion), vegetables and fruits ($3.34 billion), and cashew ($3.07 billion).
The aquaculture sector reported a record-high export revenue of $11 billion, up 23.8% year-on-year and 22.2% higher than the year target.
For 2023, the sector eyes to maintain the farming areas of 1.3 million hectares, including 380,000 hectares for freshwater products and 920,000 hectares for brackish water and saltwater.
The target is 8.74 million tons of products, comprising 3.58 million tons of harvested and 5.16 million tons of farmed products.
The forestry sector gained a record-high export revenue of $16.93 billion last year, up 6.1% year-on-year, resulting in a trade surplus of $14.1 billion, the highest figure among all agricultural sub-sectors. The country’s forestry coverage was 42.02%, meeting the target.
For 2023, the sector aims to earn $17.5 billion from exporting goods and maintain the forestry coverage at 42% of the country’s area.
The ministry attributed these achievements to the opening of new export markets, especially fastidious ones. For example, Vietnam signed four deals to export durian, bananas, sweet potatoes, and bird nests to China last year.
Next year, the agricultural sector plans to reach a growth of 3%, and export revenue of $54 billion, said Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien.
Vietnam's economy expanded by 8.02% in 2022, much higher than the 2.58% recorded in the previous year during the height of the pandemic, according to the General Statistics Office. Of this, the agriculture-forestry-aquaculture sector recorded a growth of 3.36%, or 0.42 percentage points to the overall growth.
The agriculture farmed 7.1 million hectares of rice last year, down 127,700 hectares year-on-year, harvesting 42.66 million tons, down 1.19 million tons. Other major products included 4.41 million tons of corn, down 0.8%; 969,100 tons of sweet potatoes, down 21.3%; 18.68 million tons of vegetables, up 2.9%.
The output of the husbandry sector featured 4.43 million tons of pork, up 5.9% year-on-year; 2.03 million tons of poultry meat, up 4.5%; 122,800 tons of buffalo meat, up 1.6%; 474,300 tons of beef, up 3.5%; 18.3 billion eggs, up 4.4%; and 1.28 million tons of milk, up 10.2%.