Vietnam imported about 70,000 tonnes of pork and pork products in the first six months of 2021. (Source: VNA) Thelatest data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development showed that Vietnamimported about 70,000 tonnes of pork and pork products by the end of the firstsix months.
Inaddition, the import of milk and dairy products is estimated at 650 million USD(up 14.5 percent), raising the import value of meat, meat by-products andedible animal by-products to 727 million USD (up 51.5 percent).
Thecountry imported 12,800 breeding pigs and over 2.2 million breeding poultry inthe first six months of the year.
Themain meat import markets of Vietnam are Russia, the US, India, the Netherlandsand Poland.
Russiawas the largest market supplying meat and meat products to Vietnam after thefirst five months of this year with 45,750 tonnes, worth 97.49 million USD, up493.2 percent in volume and up 437.5 percent in value over the same period inlast year.
The Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper quotedNguyen Van Trong, Deputy Director of the Livestock Breeding GeneralDepartment under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, assaying that due to the influence of African swine fever, the amount of importedpork from other countries to Vietnam increased sharply.
Forexample, Vietnam imported more than 141,000 tonnes of fresh, chilled or frozenpork last year, worth 334.44 million USD, up 382 percent in volume and 502.9 percentin value compared to 2019.
Trongsaid Vietnam had continued to maintain a large amount of imported pork from thebeginning of the year until now, but in fact, foreign pork only accounted forabout four percent of the total amount of meat in the country, so it was not aconcern.
Healso added that in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, pork consumption isfalling sharply, so it was forecast that the amount of meat imported thisyear would be less than last year.
Asof June, the re-herd work of the livestock industry has achieved positiveresults – the pig herd increased by 11.6 percent with meat output reaching morethan 2 million tonnes.
Cattleand poultry herds recovered with a total meat output of all kinds estimated at3.16 million tonnes, a year-on-year growth of 22.58 percent.
Thebiggest concern then was for farmers. While the prices of products were low,production costs were high, plus the pandemic made it difficult to transport,meaning farmers are facing the risk of losses, Trong said.
Healso said that live hog prices fell sharply, but consumers still had to bearhigh purchase prices.
Theaverage price of pork in the markets is still at 120,000 - 130,000 VND (about 5USD) per kilogramme.
Thereason was that there were too many intermediary stages in the process ofdistributing pork to the market, leading to difficulties between the threestages of production, supply and consumption./.
VNA
