Lang Son (VNA) – Vietnam’sagricultural and aquatic exports to China are likely to face higher qualityrequirements and stronger competition from other ASEAN exporters althoughChina’s demand for these goods is still on the rise, heard a meeting on August18.

The event was held by the Ministry ofAgriculture and Rural Development and the People’s Committee of the northernprovince of Lang Son with a view to connecting farm produce sellers and buyersof Vietnamese and Chinese border provinces.

Statistics show that trade between the twocountries has continually increased over the past years, hitting 93.7 billionUSD in 2017, up 30.2 percent year on year. It reached 46.8 billion USD in thefirst half of 2018, up 17.4 percent from the same period last year. The figureincluded 3.7 billion USD worth of Vietnamese agricultural and aquatic exportsto China, rising by 6.4 percent.

Participants in the meeting shared the view thatVietnam owns many favourable conditions for farm produce trading with itsneighbour, which has very big demand for these commodities.

Consumers’ similar taste and the close proximityhave also helped facilitate the transportation of goods, especially seasonal produceand items benefiting from preferential tariffs under the ASEAN-China Free TradeAgreement and other international commitments of China.

However, La Dinh Tuyen from the Export-ImportDepartment of the Ministry of Industry and Trade said Vietnamese goods in Chinaare encountering competition from similar products of Thailand, Indonesia,India, Cambodia, and even China.

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Meanwhile, China hasn’t permitted importing someproducts of Vietnam’s strength such as mangosteen, durian, passion fruit, livepigs, milk products, freshwater fish and clam. Some border provinces andtrading companies haven’t strongly developed infrastructure, he added.

Tuyen noted China has set higher qualitystandards, adding that it has built large-scale testing and quarantine laboratoriescomparable to those of developed nations like the US, Japan and EU countries.

To enter China, agricultural and aquaticproducts of Vietnam will have to face higher quality barriers and strongercompetition from other ASEAN countries, he said.

Echoing this, Nguyen Thi Ha, head of the PlantQuarantine Sub-department of Region 7 (consisting of Lang Son and some nearbyprovinces), said China is raising plant quarantine barriers and has issuedstricter regulations on farm produce imports.

To maintain Vietnamese goods’ prestige,businesses need to seriously adhere to Chinese regulations on products’ originand coordinate with plant quarantine units in taking samples of farm producefor testing.

Meanwhile, the agriculture ministry’s PlantProtection Department will work more closely with the Chinese side to graduallyremove technical barriers to Vietnamese agricultural products. It will alsocontinue asking China to permit the official import of more fresh fruits fromthe country, Ha said.

At the meeting, Vietnamese and Chinesebusinesses signed many memoranda of understanding on farm produce tradingcooperation.-VNA