Vietnam worry protectionism could harm produce exports
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong said at a press conference on January 5 that protectionism has returned with countries especially trying to protect their farm produce.
Analysts said that many countries have made heavy investments in agriculture as a measure to ensure food security and enhance competitiveness of their farm produce. China for example has decided to invest $450 billion into restructuring while Thailand invested $1.5 billion to fix market problems.
The growing protectionism including President-elect Donald Trump's plan to roll back on free trade deals has Vietnam officials worried about the future of open trade. These issues have led Vietnam to worry about the future after seeing its first minus growth rate.
Vietnam, for the first time in history, saw a minus 0.18 percent in agricultural growth rate in the first six months of 2016. The agriculture sector could only regain the growth in the second half of the year after a lot of efforts. The GDP grew by 1.36 percent, the export reached the record high of $32.1 billion, up by $1.7 billion over 2015, while the farm produce trade surplus reached $7.5 billion and 10 export items had the export turnover of $1 billion and higher.
source: english.vietnamnet.vn
