Hanoi (VNA) – There remains ample room for Vietnam's exportsto China and the growth will be directly proportional to the quality improvement of products by domestic enterprises, according to Dau tu (Investment) Newspaper.

Vietnam shipped approximately 2.2 billion USD worth ofdurians overseas in 2023, of which exports to China alone accounted for2.1 billion USD with nearly 500,000 tonnes.

Last year, Vietnam saw 12 groups of goods exported to the Chinese market with value of more than 1 billion USD each. Among them, phones and components took the lead with earnings of 16.87 billion USD, followed by computers,electronic products and components with 13 billion USD. The above-mentioneditems contributed to more than 62 billion USD in Vietnam's export turnover to Chinaand nearly 172 billion USD in bilateral trade in2023.

Two-way trade turnover reached over 42 billionUSD in the first quarter of this year. Of which, Vietnam's exports to China topped12.68 billion USD, an increase of 5.2% while imports from the neighbouring country reached29.4 billion USD, up 24.4% from the same period last year.

With this result, growth in exports to China remained a bright spot in the country's trade activities in the first quarter and isexpected to retain its momentum for the whole year.

According to Chinese Ambassador to Vietnam Xiong Bo, in2023, given a complex external environment, the economies of China and Vietnamfaced many challenges, but still maintained a growth rate of over 5%, which wasa very remarkable achievement.

𒁏 Vietnam and China have had many bilateral cooperationagreements, as well as multilateral agreements, such as the ASEAN-China Free TradeAgreement (ACFTA) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement(RCEP). Besides, China is also hastening its negotiations to join theComprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).These free trade agreements will promote trade between the two countries as they cut many tax lines on imported and exported goods and facilitates trade.

Currently, Vietnam has 14 agricultural productsexported to China via the official channel. In the future, this figure is expected to increase whenChina opens its market for other farm products such as fresh coconuts, frozenvegetables and citrus fruits. China's demand for imported goods is constantly increasing, butit is no longer an accommodating market, insiders said. According to Dong Giao Food Export Joint Stock Company (Doveco), which ownsa closed, large-scale fruit and vegetable production chain with a processingfactory system that meets the standards from choosy markets, Chinese consumers are as demanding as those of the European Union and the US, therefore,it is necessary to avoid shipments of agricultural and aquatic products thatviolate food safety regulations. It cited 30 batches of Vietnamese durian exported toChina containing cadmium, a heavy metal, exceeding the regulated food safetylimit that had received a warning from the China General Administration of Customs.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development PhungDuc Tien said that the ministry has assigned the Plant Protection Department toreview the whole process from production to harvest and export, figure out the causesand set forth solutions to meet the requirements of China as well as othermarkets.

ಞ China is opening up its market to many types of agriculturalproducts from Vietnam, however, to effectively exploit this billion-peoplemarket, the domestic agricultural production industry needs to standardiseprocesses to meet the needs of importers, he added./.