The ministry says that farm produce will benefit the most from the agreement, under which Japan has pledged to cut taxes on Vietnamese farm produce by 84 percent. As soon as the agreement took effect, Japan did away with 784 out of 2,020 tariffs on Vietnamese agricultural products.

Taxes that are scheduled to be reduced over the next 3-5 years also cover 14 products of high export value such as glutamate, beans, ginger, and bananas, whose export revenues made up 14 percent of the total turnover of farm produce exports to the Japanese market.

In the next seven years, Japan will also continue to reduce or remove import taxes on 72 agricultural products, which include processed fruits and vegetables, corn, cassava, and spices – major staples for Vietnamese exporters.

Regarding seafood, 64 out of 330 commodities have already received tax reductions since the VJEPA came into force. Vietnamese shrimps enjoy zero tax, which has created a huge opportunity for them to penetrate the Japanese market. Vietnamese shrimps will be a top priority for Japanese importers in 2010. Vietnam earned an estimated US$1.51 billion from shrimp exports in 2009 – nearly 40 percent of the total value of Vietnamese seafood exports.

Vietnam’s trade bureau in Japan says that the Northeast Asian country will import increasing amounts of fresh fruit and vegetables as the competitiveness of its domestic agriculture sector is falling.

In addition, Vietnam has an advantage from the seasonal and climatic differences between Vietnam and Japan, which allows Vietnam to ship products that are not widely available in the country. As people care much about their health, the import of Vietnamese bananas, pineapples, papayas, and mangos is picking up.

However, Le Quang Lan, vice head of the Department for Multilateral Trade Policies under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, warns that Vietnamese exporters must pay strict attention to the quality of their products. “Japan never compromises on the quality of its imports,” Mr Lan says, adding that Japan applies thorough systems for food quality management with a view to protecting community health. Japan’s standards, he stressed, are equal to or even higher than international standards.