Hanoi (VNA) – Despite numerous difficulties comingfrom the domestic and international situation, the agricultural sector has managedto achieve important targets, and it still persists in this year’sagro-forestry-fishery export target of 50 billion USD as assigned by the PrimeMinister.

So said Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural DevelopmentPhung Duc Tien at the ministry’s regular press briefing on September 5.

Vietnamearned about 36.3 billion USD in agro-forestry-fishery exports in the firsteight months of 2022, up 13.1% from a year earlier. Seven groups of productsrecorded export revenue of over 2 billion USD each, namely coffee, rubber,rice, fruit and vegetables, cashew nut, shrimp, and wood.

Thesector has sustained growth and guaranteed food security, helping ensure majorbalances of the economy, Tien said.

Pointing outcertain challenges, he noted the time from now to the year’s end is the stormseason while there are latent risks of disease outbreaks on crops and livestock,so the sector needs to step up efforts to prevent natural disasters as well asplant and animal diseases.

Besides, global economic and political uncertainties,especially fuel price hikes, will affect the domestic market and strongly drivetransportation costs. Credit tightening due to soaring inflation in some countries,China’s enhancement of goods control, and origin fraud charges are also posingchallenges to the export of agricultural products, especially timber and wooditems, according to the Deputy Minister.

Talking about a growthslowdown in timber and wood product exports, Deputy Director General of theVietnam Administration of Forestry Tran Quang Bao pointed to the Russia -Ukraine conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts on import markets, addingbusinesses are striving to seek new markets and boost domestic sales.

However, overseas shipments of wood pellets have surged by150 - 200%, especially to Japan and the Republic of Korea, which will partlymake up for the growth slowdown in total exports. If the August growth pace ismaintained, wood product exports will reach 1.3 billion USD each month from nowto the year’s end to total 16.3 billion USD in 2022, he said.

Meanwhile, eight-month fishery exports hit 7.59 billion USD.With the current growth trend, if the exports can rake in 800 - 900 million USDmonthly, the whole year’s shipments are likely to reach 10 billion USD, saidDeputy Director General of the Directorate of Fisheries Nguyen Quang Hung./.