First order: Agriculture products’ troubles

Basically speaking, agricultural products come from agriculture production, that is, farmers' products, which means that the benefits from consumption in the market naturally belong to farmers. However, in reality, this story is not so simple not only in Vietnam but in the whole world.

International practice

Without having witnessed it with our own eyes, because those are the story of the past, it can be firmly ascertained that there have been fierce controversies in international trade regarding agricultural products.

The evidence is that, for arbitration, the trade heads of WTO member countries have consented to sign an “Agreement on Agriculture” more than three decades ago. However, even in this international legal document, there is no specific definition of what agricultural products are.

According to United Nations statistics, if calculated according to the 6-digit HS code, this group of goods currently includes more than 1,100 items which trading are allowed on the world market. Meanwhile, the remaining group of goods, although also derived from agriculture, is only in the form of raw materials, so it only includes a very small number of items such as: essential oils, albumin, raw hides and furs, cotton, silk, linen, hemp.

However, a very important issue here is that being the same products derived from agriculture, but there is a very clear distinction according to the level of processing between the two goods groups. Perhaps this difference stems from the following two mutually resonating causes:

- Firstly, food and foodstuffs are available on the world market with extremely diverse types, which can be fresh, or processed, even the processing is also very diverse in scale and extent,  carried out by farmers themselves, or by the participation of the processing industry, so it is impossible to clearly distinguish, which is the farmer's product, which is the product of the processing industry, and the raw agricultural product materials, on the contrary, are much simpler in type and can clearly distinguish the role of the processing industry.

- Secondly, due to many different reasons, not only agricultural production, but also the export and import of food and foodstuffs, are activities subsidized by many countries, affecting the whole chain of products from farmers' outputs to final consumer products, which can lead to conflicts of interest in the market, so the Agreement on Agriculture was created to entirely regulate this very important activity sector.

Three agencies, three numbers

Upon looking at Vietnam’s statistical system so far, it is not difficult to realize that we always have three different numbers "like chalk and cheese" in terms of agricultural products. It can be affirmed with certainty that the cause of the dissimilarity is the different perceptions regarding the category of agricultural products.

According to the MoIT, in our country's "export commodity basket", agricultural products only include nine items: seafood, vegetables, cashew nuts, coffee, tea, pepper, rice, cassava and cassava products, rubber.

In contrast, according to the MARD, the list of agricultural products for export is not only that, but also much broader: So far, agricultural products have also included rubber products, animal feed and raw materials, fertilizers, livestock products, wood and wood products, and other products made from rattan, bamboo, sedge, carpet…

Meanwhile, because the General Statistics Office did not specify which "basket of agricultural products" for export includes, so it can only be speculated that it is not as narrow as that set by the MoIT, but it certainly cannot be as wide as that of the MARD, but located rather in the middle. Not only that, so far, neither the MoIT nor the General Statistics Office has announced anything about agricultural product importation.