Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam’sfood industry is growing strongly thanks to people’s improved income, increasedpurchasing power, and the supply of diverse and highly competitive products, anofficial told a policy dialogue in Hanoi on April 13.

Vu Ba Phu, Director of the Vietnam TradePromotion Agency at the Ministry of Industry and Trade, said that about 5,080Vietnamese businesses are operating in the food industry, surging 83.8% from2019, which is an encouraging figure after two years of struggling with theCOVID-19 pandemic.

Over the last five years, the volumesof food and beverage consumption in the country have risen by 9.68% and 6.66%,respectively.

The processed vegetable and fruitsegment makes up 24.7% of the industry’s revenue and is expected to post thefastest growth thanks to strong export and domestic consumption. Notably, this segmenthas witnessed growth of nearly 205%. The most favoured fruits include mango,banana, dragon fruit, orange, and pineapple, he noted.

In particular, the food industry isamong the key ones prioritised by the Vietnamese Government by 2025, with a visionto 2035, and also has an important role to play in socio-economic development,Phu went on.

In recent years, the food industryassociations of Vietnam and the Republic of Korea (RoK) have promoted cooperation.Vietnamese firms have also benefited from business partnerships with majorKorean enterprises such as Lotte Mart, E-mart, Home Plus, and CJ to increasetheir presence in the RoK’s supermarkets and shopping centres like Coupang andGmarket, and gradually enter the Northeast Asian country’s e-commerce market, theofficial added.

Paul Le, Vice President of CentralRetail Vietnam’s trade promotion division, held that Korean enterprises shouldgrasp import opportunities since Vietnam produces many foods hardly found inthe RoK.

His firm will consider assisting Koreanenterprises by sharing experience in processing, producing, and creating newproducts in the fast-moving consumer goods sector, he noted, adding that Vietnamhas a large volume of raw materials, and Central Retail Vietnam looks to boostadded value through processing.

Vietnam has become a key destination for Korean companies, and the Korean firms operating here hold an important role inpurchasing materials for processing and exporting to other countries, said arepresentative of the Korea Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA).

Bilateral trade in agro-forestry-fisheryproducts has also been on the rise. The RoK has strongly opened its agricultureunder its free trade agreements with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN) and Vietnam. This liberalisation process has turned the RoK into thefourth largest importer of Vietnam’s agro-forestry-fishery products, after theUS, China, and Australia, according to KOTRA./.