At a recent seminar held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the southern city of Cần Thơ, a number of problems related to trade capacity and solutions were discussed. Local farmers and authorities should clarify production priorities of each region. Meanwhile, businesses should be active in identifying market trends.
Pham Van Quynh, Director, Dept. of Agriculture & Rural Development, Can Tho City said: I think that improving farmer capacity must become a regular task. We must intensify mechanisation and modernisation in agriculture. It’s necessary to connect farmers and businesses, and help farmers produce products based on real market demand.
Vietnam will soon have to implement a number of signed trade agreements while continuing to negotiate as series of so-called new generation agreements. In the next 5 years, Vietnam could have 15 effective free trade agreements with 57 partners that account for 95% of global GDP. These FTAs are expected to bring a great number of opportunities and challenges to agriculture in the Mekong Delta Region.
Bui Thanh Son, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs said: We’ll have more chances to export to markets where our products are currently limited by quotas and taxes. With the coming FTAs, we’ll be able to maximise our production capacity. For now, we should be well-prepared. One of our challenges is to enhance the trade capacity of localities and businesses.
Most of the coming FTAs will further boost the level of trade liberalisation and competition in Vietnam. Tax reductions will lead to a huge wave of competitively priced imports. This is said to be a great danger to Vietnamese agricultural products because the country’s technical barriers are still relatively low.
