The Middle Eastern nation of Israel, though small in size, is a highly
lucrative market for Vietnamese agricultural exports, radio The Voice of
Vietnam (VOV) reported.
Two-way trade turnover between Vietnam and Israel has steadily been accelerating over the past years.
According
to the Vietnam Trade Office (VTO) in Israel, the country principally
exports agricultural products, garments and electronic equipment while
it imports fertiliser, machinery, equipment and electronic parts from
Israel.
In the first six months of the year, Vietnam’s
agricultural exports to Israel dipped 6 percent compared to the same
period last year to 45.7 million USD and accounted for 13 percent of the
Vietnam’s total export revenues.
Vietnam Customs’ statistics
reflect that agricultural exports to Israel for last year were 100
million USD, comprising 27 percent of the country’s total exports to
Israel.
Major agricultural export products included seafood
(42.4 million USD), coffee (25.9 million USD), cashew nuts (23.8 million
USD), peppers (7.5 million USD), rice (5.9 million USD), rubber (3.2
million USD) and other products like vegetables and fruit, tea, cassava
and sweet fennel (1 million USD).
With a population of more than 8
million people, Israel is the most important consumer of Vietnamese
coffee in the Middle East as it has many coffee processing enterprises
to ship their products to regional markets as well as Europe and
America.
Last year, Vietnam’s coffee exports to the market accounted for 56 percent of total export value to Middle East.
Israel
is also an important market for Vietnamese cashew nuts with its value
making up 30 percent of total export revenues to the Middle East.
The
country is also the third largest importer of seafood (around 20
percent), rice (16 percent) and rubber (7 percent) and the fourth
largest importer of pepper (8 percent).
The VTO in Israel
reported that the country has high demand for importing agricultural
products not only for domestic use but also for processing instant food
for exports to the third countries.
Israel cannot grow the
farm produce that Vietnam exports to it even though it has high demand
for them, leading market analysts report.
Once the political
unrest and conflict in the region is dealt with effectively, Vietnam’s
agricultural exports to the country will jump significantly.
The
key to the prospects for enhanced cooperation with Israel lies in the
fact that it possesses advanced technologies, especially in agricultural
production and due to restricted land and labour forces, the country
cannot fully utilise the technology.
This provides a great
opportunity for the two nations to cooperate in agriculture, and Vietnam
should encourage Israeli businesses to transfer technology and find
outlet markets for agricultural products.
Experts are optimistic
that Vietnam and Israel have the potential for long-term sustainable
agriculture cooperation to make full advantage of the opportunities and
strategies, which stimulates stronger development. The Ministry of
Industry and Trade has devised measures on market development with
Israel, including agricultural and seafood demand at markets and export
mechanisms and export facilitation policies.
In addition, the
ministry has actively worked to expand export markets with Israel for
agricultural and seafood products by reducing tax, opening market and
removing trade barriers through negotiations on Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP) agreement and the Vietnam-EU Free Trade Agreement
(VEFTA).
It has also enhanced opportunities for finding potential
partners and markets for businesses and updating them with
protectionism, trade barriers and trade lawsuits of import markets.-VNA