Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Vietnam expects its agriculturalexport value to China to increase sharply this year, as China agreed to reviewregulations permitting official exports of poultry meat from Vietnam to thismarket.

Last year, livestock products accounted for only 1% of theagricultural, forestry and aquatic product export value to China, at 12.2billion USD. That was mainly due to Vietnam not yet being permitted officialexports of meat products to China.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Tran ThanhNam said that with a market of 1.4 billion people, China's consumer demand formeat products is up to about 400 billion USD per year, so the potential forexporting meat from Vietnam to China is many times higher than that ofvegetables and fruits.

In the future, Vietnam expects livestock products to join the listof products gaining billion-dollar export value, if Vietnam can sign theprotocol on poultry meat export with China, and continue to negotiate theprotocol on pork export to this market, Nam said.

For many years, most of Vietnam's livestock products, includingpork, beef, and chicken and buffalo meat, have been under unofficial quotas atborder gates. This export has faced border barriers, and inspection and controlaccording to stricter standards.

At present, Vietnam ships two products of the livestock industryto China, including bird's nests and milk, under official export according tothe protocol on exporting bird's nest signed in 2022 and the protocol onexporting milk signed in 2019 between the two countries.

Thanks to the protocol, Vietnam's exports of milk and milkproducts to China have grown very rapidly recent years. Those products haveaccounted for 93% of the total export value of Vietnam's livestock products toChina.

Tong Xuan Chinh, Deputy Director of the Department of LivestockProduction, said that in 2023, export value of livestock products surged by 26.2%year on year to 515 million USD.

Meanwhile, the import value of livestock products reached 3.53billion USD, down 4.4% compared to 2022.

The export value of livestock products was only one-seventh of theimport value of livestock products, and was also too low compared to otheragricultural products, said Chinh.

Last year, Vietnam exported more than 34 million eggs, an increaseof more than 3.1 times compared to 2022. In May 2023, Vietnam exported thefirst batches of eggs to the Republic of Korea.

On July 31, 2023, after four years of ban, Vietnam's poultry eggscame back to Hong Kong. This market immediately accounted for about 70% of eggsexported from Vietnam.

On November 2, 2023, Vietnam and Mongolia officially completednegotiations to export poultry meat and eggs to the Mongolian market.

According to the Department of Livestock Production, in 2023, Vietnamexported 12,300 tonnes of pork, earning nearly 63.3 million USD, an increase of28% compared to 2022. Fresh, chilled or frozen pork products of Vietnam wereshipped to Papua New Guinea, Laos and Malaysia.

Vietnam's fresh milk exports in 2023 also grew by 1.7 timescompared to 2022 to reach 204 million USD. Especially, fresh milk exports toChina skyrocketed from 48 million USD in 2022 to 123 million USD in 2023.

Meanwhile, Vietnam has seven enterprises exporting 700kg of bird’snests in total to China, after Vietnam gained permission for official export ofbird’s nests to this market last year./.