Promoting agriculture products trade worthy of the Vietnam - Russia relationship

In the meeting, both sides have conversed in order to create opportunities to promote trade of products of high competitive advantages between Vietnam and Russia Federation, specifically, on the Russian side there are meat, wheat, fertilizer, milk, ... and the Vietnamese side there are seafood, coffee, tea, pepper, fruit, and rubber.

Before 2018, the export and import value of Vietnamese and Russian agricultural products was only about US$ 500 million/year. In 2018 alone, the peak was at US$ 1.35 billion and in 2019 dropped to US$ 900 million. In 2020, the export and import turnover of agricultural products between the two countries experienced a slight decrease to US$ 880 million, of which Vietnam's export to Russia was US$ 432 million...

“Agriculture, in particular, continues to maintain growth rate at 2.78%, firmly ensures national food security, and upholds exports at a high record of over US$ 41.55 billion. Agricultural cooperation between Vietnam and Russia, especially in trade and investment, holds great importance and has been promoting economic recovery, positively contributing to the shared prosperity of the two countries and the peace and stability of the regions.”, said the representative of MARD Vietnam.

According to Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien, the agricultural trade relationship between the two countries is progressing well, but still not commensurate with the potential of the economic scale and strategic partnership between the two countries. Therefore, the two sides need stronger commands to turn challenges into opportunities during the Covid-19 situation such as to facilitate the trade of products with competitive advantages.

On that basis, it is suggested that the Governments of both countries should continue to focus on directing to facilitate the further opening of the two countries' agricultural products exportation to each other, heading towards mutual recognition to reduce technical barriers and take time to review each enterprise in both the fisheries and livestock sectors.

Attending the meeting, Ms. Thai Huong, Founder, Chairman of Strategy Council of TH Group, the enterprise that has many major projects in Russia, gave some recommendations to the Ministry of Agriculture and Russian localities.

Specifically, Ms. Thai Huong suggested that Russia should create conditions for TH True Milk to bring workers and experts from Vietnam to early complete their projects, creating conditions so that TH's grass products in Russia may soon be brought back to Vietnam and consider extending the completion time of the project due to an objective reason: the Covid-19 pandemic. After listening to Ms. Thai Huong's opinion, the Russian side has agreed with the recommendations and pledged to create the best conditions for TH to develop its projects in Russia.

For his part, Russian Deputy Minister of Agriculture Sergey Levin said that despite facing many difficulties due to the negative impact of the Covid-19 epidemic globally, the two sides still have regular trade and investment using new methods.

Upon agreeing with the exchange contents and the desire to strengthen cooperation with Vietnam in the agricultural sector, Deputy Minister Sergey Levin affirmed the potentials and prospects of agricultural cooperation and an increase in trade between the two countries.

Russia truly hopes to develop and consolidate the development and expansion of cooperation between the two sides. In order to strengthen the development of trade relations, Russia will send representatives to Vietnam to operate at the Embassy in Hanoi to participate in these activities in near future.