Vietnam earned 41 million USD from exporting about 60,000 tonnes of rice to the EU in 2021. (Photo: VNA) In 2021, Vietnam shippedabout 60,000 tonnes of rice worth 41 million USD to the EU, rising nearly 1percent in volume and over 20 percent in value from the previous year. Thatincluded some 40,000 tonnes of fragrant rice worth almost 30 million USD, upover 9 percent in volume and nearly 30 percent in value.
The EU - Vietnam Free TradeAgreement (EVFTA), coming into force on August 1, 2020, has helped raise pricesof the Vietnamese grain by 10 - 20 USD per tonne, partly making up for themodest increase in volume due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the EU statisticaloffice Eurostat, among the 10 largest rice suppliers for the bloc, rice fromVietnam saw the strongest price growth, 20.3 percent, to an average of 781 USDper tonne.
The Foreign Trade Agencyunder Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade attributed those outcomes tobusinesses’ capitalisation of advantages created by the EVFTA. Besides, theyare also stepping up the production of high-quality rice such as fragrant,long-grain, and specialty varieties to enter demanding markets.
For example, fragrant riceaccounted for 70 percent of the country’s total rice exports to the EU,compared to 64 percent in the previous year.
Workers prepare rice for transportation (Photo: VNA) To Vietnam, the EU is itsthird largest importer of agricultural products, about 5.5 billion USD per year.However, farm produce from the Southeast Asian nation has made up just 4percent of the bloc’s imports of these commodities. In particular, Vietnameserice only has a market share of merely over 1 percent.
The Vietnam Food Association predictedrice exports to the EU will continue growing well in 2022. Notably, theimproved quality of fragrant rice has met European consumers’ demand.
The optimisation of the EVFTAto export rice at zero-percent tariffs is being promoted by the enterpriseswith large material production zones such as Loc Troi, Tan Long, and Trung An.
Pham Thai Binh, GeneralDirector of the Trung An Hi-Tech Farming JSC, said the EVFTA is bringing aboutgreater opportunities for agricultural products of Vietnam, including rice. Thefirm has made use of the agreement to sell thousands of tonnes of rice to suchmarkets as Switzerland, France, and Germany.
Meanwhile, Loc Troi was thefirst to export 126 tonnes of fragrant rice to the EU under the EVFTA, inSeptember 2020. It is currently accounting for nearly 70 percent of Vietnam’srice exports to this bloc./.
VNA
