Seafood and vegetable exports to the UK positively increase after the UKVFTA

According to the Europe - America Market Department (Ministry of Industry and Trade), in January 2021, the total import and export turnover between Vietnam and the UK reached US$ 657.35 million, up 78.57% over the same period last year. In particular, Vietnam’s export turnover to England reached US$ 598.07 million, up 84.61% compared to January 2020 and 56.51% compared to December 2020 respectively.

This is, in fact, very impressive growth in the context of the difficulties in exporting to major customers due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This applauding signal holds more meaning when the Vietnam - United Kingdom and Northern Ireland Free Trade Agreement has just been applied since January 1st, 2021, which hopes to continue to create new motivations for economic - trade cooperation between the two countries hereafter.

In the export products group structure of Vietnam to England, agriculture export's increase rate remained stable and positive in January. To be specific, seafood exports reached US$ 19.72 million, 18.1% higher compared to the same period last year; fruits and vegetables reached US$ 1.04 million, 148.6% higher compared to the same period last year.

These are all commodity sectors that have a lot of opportunities to raise the export value and their proportion in the market structure through many tariff preferences in the UKVFTA.

In accordance with the commitments in the UKVFTA, import tax from most raw shrimp (fresh, frozen, chilled) from Vietnam imported to England is reduced from the basic tax rate of 10 - 20% to 0% once the Agreement comes into effect.

For vegetables and fruits, when the Agreement comes into effect, more than 94% of the total 547 tariffs for vegetables and fruits and its products, which are imported from Vietnam to the UK, will have a tax rate of 0%. 

Many types of fruits that are Vietnam’s strong point such as lychee, longan, rambutan, dragon fruit, pineapple, melon,… will also have additional market access advantages given the background that tropical fruits originated from competitive countries such as Brazil, Thailand, Malaysia,… all haven’t acquired FTA with England.

With the large import demand for vegetables and fruits as well as the increase in the British’s consumer taste for tropical fruit products, in the coming time, Vietnam’s fruit and vegetable industry will have the opportunity to access the UK market in a more favorable way and boosting export turnover to this market.