HCM City (VNA) - Vietnam has manyopportunities to export commodities, particularly in agricultural products andfood, to Africa and the Middle East, heard a conferenceheld by the Ministry of Industry and Trade in Ho Chi Minh City on December 19.

The conference aimed to give local exporters an overviewof markets, trade policies, business etiquette and export opportunities inAfrican and Middle East nations.

According to Vice Director of the Ministry’s Departmentof Asian-African Markets Ngo Khai Hoan, 70 countries in Africa and the MiddleEast have a total population of more than 1.6 billion, a huge market forVietnamese exporters. Last year, trade between Vietnam and these nations stoodat 23.3 billion USD, including 14.9 billion USD worth of exports from Vietnam.

Africa, a market of 1.3 billion people, has a strongdemand for agricultural products, said Nguyen Thi Minh Phuong from thedepartment, adding that African countries imported 35 billion USD of farmproduce in 2016 and the figure is likely to hit 110 billion USD in 2025.

The high demand for such products has been attributed tothe continent’s severe weather conditions weakening local agriculture.Therefore, most local needs for food, particularly rice, aquatic products,coffee, and pepper, are satisfied by imports, she noted.

Trade between Vietnam and the Middle East has also seenconsiderable rises in recent years. Two-way trade reached 10.9 billion USD in2016, doubling that of 2011, stated Ly Quoc Thinh from the department. However,Vietnam’s 8.06 billion USD worth of exports to the Middle East last year onlyaccounted for 1 percent of the region’s total foreign trade.

The Middle East nations have a growing demand forimported farm products, especially tropical fruits and aquatic products,alongside consumption goods, footwear and garments-textiles. The region’simports of foods average 40 billion USD annually and are expected to total 70 billionUSD to meet its needs, Thinh said.

Despite high demand for agricultural imports, theAfrican and Middle East markets may pose many challenges to Vietnameseexporters due to cultural differences. They set strict requirements on Halal standardsfor food as well as in labels and quality control.

In addition, some West African nations have reported moreand more trade frauds while the Middle East has suffered political unrest foryears.-VNA