China opens - Opportunities or Challenges for Vietnamese agricultural products

2022 is considered a special year in agricultural export cooperation between Vietnam and China. The Decree on official export of agricultural products for fruit such as durian, sweet potatoes, bananas, passion fruit, and fresh chili has raised hope for farmers after a long period of falling agricultural prices. Along with China's move to open up after the pandemic on January 8th, 2023, customs clearance of goods, travel, and exchanges between countries are easier. Therefore, 2023 is predicted to be a boom year for Vietnamese agricultural products to expand their market share.

According to market surveys, prices of agricultural and aquatic products have increased significantly in the past 3 weeks, especially after the Lunar New Year. For example, for officially exported agricultural products such as durian, the price has increased 2-3 times compared to previous times. As soon as China opened, traders began buying dragon fruits with huge yields, pushing prices up very high, and making farmers very excited.

However, the Chinese market is no longer easy-going. To officially export to this “billions of population” country, agricultural products must have planting areas planned, and pesticide residues must be reduced to levels close to those of developed countries. In addition, agricultural authorities need to plan cultivation areas and establish organizations to avoid the situation that farmers chasing prices leads to massive planting, causing an imbalance in the crop structure, and affecting the agricultural product prices.

In the current reality, we can see that, at large wholesale markets and agricultural trade alleys, fruits such as oranges, An Phuoc plums, Taiwanese mangoes, etc. have dropped sharply in price. One thing in common is that these types of agricultural products are not on the list of official exports to China. In particular, this year Tet comes early, and purchasing power always drops sharply after Tet, fruits are in full season again, leading to a considerable decrease in prices. Specifically, oranges cost 10,000 VND/kg, some places people even sell them for 6,000 VND/kg; An Phuoc plum is 10,000 VND - 15,000 VND/kg. This is a serious consequence of agricultural economics, the problem of "Rescuing agricultural products" still occurs regularly, so planning growing areas, planting area codes, and correct farming techniques are the main keywords for Vietnamese agricultural products to truly integrate and dominate the world market.