Agro-forestry-fishery sector posts trade surplus of over 12 bln USD in 2023

The country earned 53.01 billion USD from agro-forestry-aquatic exports in the year. Notably, some items witnessed record high export turnover, including fruits and vegetables with 5.69 billion USD (up 69.2%), and rice, 4.78 billion USD (up 38.4%).

Four other exports bringing home over 3 billion USD were cashew nuts (3.63 billion USD), coffee (4.18 billion USD), shrimp (3.38 billion USD), and wood and wooden products (13.37 billion USD).

The country shipped approximately 2.25 billion USD worth of durian products overseas in 2023, five times higher than the 2022 figure.

Agriculture continued to affirm its important position as a pillar of the economy, contributing to firmly ensuring food security, major balances of the national economy and stablising macroeconomy.

Total rice output nationwide reached 43.4 million tonnes, up 1.7% from 2022. Meanwhile, the aquatic production totalled 9.3 million tonnes, rising by 2.9% year-on-year.

Vietnam's ST25 fragrant rice variety won the World's Best Rice 2023 award for the second time.

According to Nguyen Van Viet, Director of the Planning Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the forestry sector saw an important milestone as procedures were successfully completed to transfer a reduced carbon emission volume of 10.3 million tonnes to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) through the World Bank (WB). The deal, valued at 5 USD per tonne of CO2, amounts to 51.5 million USD.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien said that good export signals will create a premise for the agriculture sector to further foster exports in 2024.