Russia has become Vietnam’s second largest supplier of pork

According to the General Department of Vietnam Customs, in 2020, Vietnam imported 141.14 thousand tons of fresh, chilled or frozen pork, worth US$ 334.44 million.

With the above quantity and value, 2020 witnessed a very strong growth in pork imports into Vietnam, with an increase of 382.1% in volume and 502.9% in value compared to 2019. The main reason is that even though pig production has recovered to a certain extent, African swine fever caused a significant shortage of domestic pork supplies.

Brazil, Russia, Canada, the US and Poland are the five largest pork suppliers for Vietnam in 2020.

Pork imported from Russia impressed the most when it occupied the 2nd position in market share after Brazilian pork in Vietnam's total pork import. In 2020, Russian pork accounted for 24.12%, just slightly lower than Brazilian pork (24.52%).

It is worth noting that before 2020, Russia was not among the largest pork exporters to Vietnam. For example, in 2019, the five largest pork exporters to Vietnam were Brazil, Poland, Canada, the US and Germany. Russia was not on this list.

The rapid growth in the Russian pork’s market share has more or less affected the share of imported pork from other countries. If in 2019, Brazilian pork accounted for 40.63%, in 2020 it fell sharply to 24.52%. Polish pork used to account for 15.7% of the market share in 2019, but in 2020 it fell to 6.39%. Germany was out of the Top 5 largest pork exporters to Vietnam, to make room for Russia.

Besides Russia, in 2020, pork imported from the US also increased its market share in Vietnam, from 6.42% in 2019 to 13.71% in 2020. Meanwhile, the market share of pork imported from Canada remained steady.

In 2021, the Department of Livestock Production (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Vietnam) set a target to increase livestock production value to about 5-6%. The output of meat of all kinds is about 5.7 million tons. Specifically, pork reached about 3.67 million tons, up 6.1%; poultry meat about 1.5 million tons, up 5.8%; beef about 395 thousand tons, up 6%; egg production about 15.6 billion, up 7.5% and milk about 1.21 million tons, up 11.5% compared to 2020.