Vietnam’s green produce has real chance in US
Vietnam has increasingly seen U.S. demand for its agricultural products rise, and has the chance to penetrate this market thanks to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has said.
Among the Vietnamese green produce, mangoes have emerges as the fruit to win over American consumers, Vilsack told reporters in Ho Chi Minh City on April 26, after touring an outlet of Vietnam’s leading supermarket chain Co.op Mart.
Mango is not grown in the US so Vietnamese businesses have an opportunity to sell this fruit to America, he explained.
The agriculture secretary was on two-day visit to Vietnam to discuss the details of the US-led TPP agreement with his Vietnamese counterparts from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
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| US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack (L) is pictured during a visit to a supermarket in Ho Chi Minh City on April 26, 2016. |
Vietnam, the US and ten other Pacific Rim countries signed the TPP on February 4 in Auckland, New Zealand, after seven years of negotiations that ended in October 2015.
The accord, which would liberalize trade in 40% of the world’s economy, has not yet come into force, pending ratification in each member country.
Once the TPP takes effect, the US is expected to drop up to 90% of the tax lines for Vietnamese goods, which Vilsack said will make Vietnam’s produce more competitive in the US market.
On the other hand, Vietnam will also reduce and eventually eliminate tariffs across a broad range of food and agricultural products, which will help put US exports on a level playing field and give the US a leg-up on non-TPP competitors.
Vietnam's average tariff on US agricultural products is 16%, while the average US tariff is 5%, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
The Southeast Asian country remains one of the fastest-growing markets for US food and agricultural products, with US exports totaling US$2.3 billion in 2015, a massive 357% increase from 2007, when Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), the department said in a press release on April 25.
It now ranks as the US' 11th-largest agricultural export market, with top products including cotton, tree nuts, soybeans, and dairy.
Vietnam has so far managed to sell rambutan, longan, litchi and dragon fruits to the US, with local exporters lamenting the fact that the licensing process remains lengthy, complicated and costly.
