Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Hanoi TradeCorporation (Hapro) has signed contracts for exporting agricultural productsworth about 2 million USD at the world’s largest foodinnovation exhibition SIAL Paris.

The fair, which is taking place in Paris from October23-27, has an exhibition area of nearly 250,000 sq.m, attracting about 6,500businesses from more than 100 countries around the world. It is also expectedto welcome more than 155,000 visitors from more than 190 countries.

Hapro’s booth features traditional exports of Vietnam suchas rice, pepper, cashews, cinnamon, processed food, vermicelli, rice noodles,rice crackers, dried fruits, desiccated coconut and spices.

At the exhibition, Hapro welcomed about 100customers to learn about the opportunities for cooperation. The corporationalso signed export contracts for agricultural products including cashew nuts,desiccated coconut, pepper and cinnamon.

Hapro is also actively negotiating with clientsto continue signing contracts to export key products such as rice, pepper,cashew nut, cassava starch, processed vegetables as well as dried fruits.

Prior to this, at the World Rice Conferenceheld in Hanoi from October 10 to 12, Hapro inked three contracts to export riceto Malaysia and the US worth nearly 2.5 million USD.

After the equitisation in June 2018, Hapro’sbusiness activities have made remarkable changes. The corporation has launcheda number of trade promotion activities, sought new markets, and strengthenedexports. 

According to Hapro’s chairwoman Nguyen Thi Nga,in the coming time, Hapro will focus on improving export turnover and makingHapro brand become the leading international brand in the region.

Besides developing commercial infrastructure in Hanoiand other provinces or cities across the country to serve retail development,Hapro boosts the export of key agricultural products and foodstuffs of Vietnam aswell as handicraft products to 80 countries and regions in the world.

In the first nine months of 2018, Hapro’s exportturnover reached 89 million USD, equaling 122 percent over the same period lastyear. The corporation’s revenue hit over 3.9 trillion VND (167.2 million USD),a year-on-year increase of 20 percent.

Some export items continued to have high growthrates such as cashew nut with 62 million USD (up 15 percent) and rice with 12million USD (up 22 percent) over the same period in 2017.

Hapro strives to achieve total revenue of 9trillion VND by 2020, an increase of 45 percent compared to 2018 with 80 percentof revenue coming from exports, said Hapro’s general director Vu Thanh Son.-VNS/VNA