New records in agriculture

In mid-June, Trung An Hi-tech Agriculture signed a contract for exporting 17,000 tons of rice at $674 per ton to South Korea. Trung An’s general director said that the company had three big contracts to the market so far this year.

“Rice goes for good prices this year. Most contracts have been signed at prices of $600-1,500 per ton,” Binh said. “ST fragrant rice is exported to the EU at $1,250 per ton."

Vietnam’s 5 percent broken rice in the world market is being traded at $508 per ton, the highest level in the last two years.

As of the end of June, Vietnam had exported $2.3 billion worth of rice, up 34.7 percent over the same period last year, a record high. Vietnam is coming closer to the target of $4 billion worth of export turnover this year.

Vegetable and fruit exports have also witnessed a boom. Vietnam’s lychees have hit supermarket shelves in 30 markets around the world at prices of VND200,000-800,000, while durian has entered the Chinese market.

Veggies have set a record by bringing turnover of $2.75 billion in the first six months, up 64.2 percent. Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien predicted export revenue of over $5 billion for veggies for this year.

The total export turnover of farm produce in the last six years reached $24.59 billion, down 11.1 percent, but the decrease was smaller than in previous months, which showed a gradual recovery. 

Seven agricultural products have joined the product items with export turnover of over one billion dollars, including coffee, rubber, rice, veggies and fruit, cashew nuts, shrimp and woodwork.

Tourism picks up

General Director of the General Statistics Office (GSO) Nguyen Thi Huong said the GDP grew by 3.72 percent in the first half of the year. Of this, the service sector grew 6.33 percent, while agriculture, forestry and seafood was 3.07 percent.

Huong stressed that the major impetus for growth in the last six months was the service sector with tourism being the bright spot.

The tourism industry attracted 5.6 million foreign travelers, or 13.5 times higher than the same period last year. The total number of domestic travelers was 64 million.

The total revenue from travelers in the first six months was estimated at VND343.1 trillion; the tourism industry recovered by 66 percent compared with 2019, before the Covid-19 outbreak.

South Korea remained the biggest inbound market for Vietnam, with 1.6 million arrivals, or 28 percent of foreign travelers, followed by China. Vietnam began receiving Chinese groups on March 15, and has received 557,000 travelers so far. The third position belonged to the US with 374,000 travelers.

There were five markets which witnessed a higher number of travelers higher than in 2019: Cambodia (338 percent), India (236 percent), Laos (117 percent), Thailand (108.4 percent) and Singapore (107.4 percent). Meanwhile, there were two markets which came close to regaining previous figures, the US (95 percent) and Australia (92 percent).

According to the Tourism Information Center, from mid-March to early June, the number of internet searches for Vietnam’s tourism increased by 10-25 percent, ranking seventh in the world. Vietnam was the only Southeast Asian country listed in the group. The international markets searched the most about Vietnam’s tourism were the US, Japan, Australia, India, South Korea, Singapore, the UK, Malaysia, Germany and France. All of them are key markets for Vietnam.

Prospects for next six months

Head of the Government Office Tran Van Son said that disbursement of public investment increased sharply, reaching VND216 trillion, up 27.75 percent (VND65 trillion), over the first half of 2022.

According to Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Quoc Phuong, the goal of disbursing 95 percent of the capital plan (VND711 trillion) by the end of the year is attainable.

Dinh Trong Thinh, a respected economist, predicted that the GDP growth rate for 2023 may reach 6.3-6.7 percent, and the inflation rate 3.3-3.5 percent. The growth rate of 6.7-7.3 percent may be attainable if enterprises can regain traditional markets, expand export markets, take full advantage of the government-initiated demand stimulus programs, and continue to enjoy falling petroleum prices.

Nguyen Le - Tam An - Ngoc Ha