VietNamNet Bridge – Some people have questioned why Vietnam’s total livestock and poultry herd ranks 2nd in Asia and among the top 10 of the world, but the country is not a big meat exporter.

In recent years, Vietnam has been a source of pork to China whenever the local source of supply was in shortage. However, Nguyen Tri Cong, Dong Nai Province Livestock Association Chair, said Vietnam mainly exported pork through the land border to China, and in small and unstable quantity. For official export, the product is suckling pigs, not frozen pork or chicken.

According to the General Department of Customs, last year Vietnam’s meat export turnover was less than $21 million, down 2.4% from the same period in 2013. At the same time, it imported more than $194 million of meat, more than nine times more than imports.

The list of countries exporting meat to Vietnam is getting longer. Initially the list only included the United States, Australia, Brazil, and South Korea but now Russia, France, Canada, and Poland are also on the list. Some other countries in the European Union are seeking ways to sell their pork and beef to Vietnam.

Grasping the opportunity

At a conference on animal husbandry in mid-2014 in HCM City, Cao Duc Phat, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, posed a question to local departments of agriculture and rural development, livestock companies and farms about why Vietnam could not export meat although it had a big herd of cattle and poultry.

According to the Department of Livestock of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Vietnam’s total poultry herd by last October was nearly 328 million heads and nearly 27 million pigs. 

Based on data published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 2010, Vietnam ranked 2nd in the world in the number of ducks, 4th for pigs, 6th for buffaloes and 13th for the cow herd. 

In Asia, Vietnam was just behind China, India and Indonesia. However, the livestock sector imports and exports in insignificant amounts.

After the question of Minister Phat was raised, the livestock industry quickly began the pilot project "Building epidemic-free areas for poultry and cattle in the period 2014-2018".

The plan was conducted in seven provinces which had the largest herds of poultry and cattle and were the major sources of supply of meat and eggs for the two major markets of Vietnam - Hanoi and HCM City. 

The long-term goal of this project was to set up vast areas that are free from diseases.

Nguyen Thanh Son, Director of the Institute of Animal Husbandry, said the project was implemented in the two northern provinces of Nam Dinh and Thai Binh, but the results did not meet expectations, because of administrative boundaries.

Son said that without disease-free areas, Vietnam cannot export meat because the prerequisite set by meat importing countries in the world was disease-free meat.

Another requirement concerns regulations on veterinary safety. Tong Xuan Chinh, Deputy Director of the Livestock Department, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said that Russia recently sent a delegation to Vietnam to seek supplies of pork but they moved to Thailand because Vietnamese failed to meet their criteria on veterinary safety. 

The same thing happened in the Japanese market. This was why the Southeast Livestock Association  send a dispatch to the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development asking them to deal with problems associated with veterinary status of chicken exports.

Nguyen Van Ngoc, Vice President of the Southeastern Livestock Association, said as the veterinary agencies of Vietnam and Japan did not reach agreement on the export code, Vietnamese firms could not sell meat to Japan.

Thus, although the products met Japanese standards, Vietnamese businesses could not export the goods.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has said he would meet with livestock firms and farms to listen to their proposals.

Na Son