In 2025, the agriculture, forestry, and fishery sector marked an impressive milestone of over 70 billion USD in exports and is heading toward the historic target of 100 billion USD by 2027. Although potential remains very massive, the market's deceleration momentum is setting out grueling trials against the pivotal 500-day journey ahead…

At the talkshow "What to do for agriculture, forestry, and fishery exports to reach 100 billion USD?" organized by the Government Information and Communications Agency on July 9, 2026, Mr. Au Anh Tuan, Deputy Director General of the General Department of Customs (Ministry of Finance), stated that in 2025, our country's agriculture, forestry, and fishery exports marked a milestone of over 70 billion USD, bringing a trade surplus value of around 20 billion USD to the economy.

A GRAND TARGET CONFRONTING MARKET "DECELERATION" PRESSURES

In the 2021 - 2025 period, agriculture, forestry, and fishery exports recorded an impressive average growth rate of 10-12%/year. Stepping into the first 6 months of 2026, despite reaching 35.88 billion USD, the growth speed showed signs of distinct slowing down, increasing merely by around 6% compared to the previous year's same period.

The Customs agency projects that export turnover in the coming time will continue to rise, but the speed will be reined in by multiple external barriers. Those are global growth deceleration, an intensifying trade protectionism trend, exchange rate fluctuations, and logistics cost burdens. Notably, large markets such as the US, the EU, Japan, and South Korea increasingly tighten standards on quality, traceability, sustainable development, and emission reduction.

Against a fiercely competitive market context, the target of reaching 100 billion USD by 2027 constitutes an exceptionally knotty equation. If 2026 is projected to reach around 75 billion USD, then to reach the destination on time by next year, export turnover must achieve a breakthrough growth rate of over 15%, representing a very massive challenge for the entire sector.

Sharing the exact same perspective regarding challenges, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Binh, Chairman of the Vietnam Fruit and Vegetable Association (Vinafruit), admitted that the potential of Vietnamese agricultural products remains very massive but has not yet been fully exploited. The time pressure against the 100-billion-dollar target currently remains around 500 days, while internal “bottlenecks” reveal themselves day by day more clearly.

Specifically, Vietnamese agricultural production still bears a heavily small-scale, fragmented nature, with cultivation relying primarily on old habits and customs, leading to the quality of multiple commodities failing to satisfy strict export standards. Besides, the inspection, testing, and quarantine capacities of state management agencies have not kept pace with reality, causing clearance speeds to slow down and generating severe congestion and massive inventories at border gates.

This difficulty concurrently manifests in a similar manner against the seafood sector. In 2026, the seafood sector expects a growth rate of 10%, reaching over 12 billion USD. However, to contribute commensurately to the common target of 2027, the seafood field is forced to grow at a lightning speed of up to 30% to touch the 16-billion-dollar milestone. This represents an extremely pressured destination when this sector is facing severe shortages extending from raw materials and labor to credit capital.

Evaluating generally this current situation, Mr. Dang Kim Son, former Director of the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development, analyzed: The combination between inherent weaknesses (small-scale, fragmented production) and new pressures from international barriers serves precisely as the core cause making the export growth momentum of this commodity group slow down recently.

SHIFTING TOWARD AN AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY

Despite facing "countless challenges", experts participating in the talkshow still maintain an optimistic view and affirm: The 100-billion-USD figure does not lie completely out of reach, if we determine to alter action methods using entirely new mindsets.

From a regulatory agency perspective, Mr. Au Anh Tuan stated that right from the beginning of 2026, the Government directed drastically the deployment of a series of powerful solutions such as: thoroughly cutting down administrative procedures, loosening business investment conditions, and stepping up digital transformation. This synchronous reform is expected to generate a solid "cradle", creating a push to support agriculture, forestry, and fishery export activities to break through during the pivotal phase.

Under a scientific viewpoint, Mr. To Nguyen Thanh, a technological expert on traceability, emphasized the role of applying technology to each individual production stage of enterprises as well as in macro-management. Proactively applying technology will drive the transformation of production models, helping enterprises along with the Government dissolve challenges and turn targets into realistic actions.

More profoundly, Dr. Nguyen Sy Dung, former Deputy Head of the National Assembly Office, affirmed that the largest knot needing to be untied is the economic mindset. Accordingly, Vietnam must powerfully shift from "agricultural production" to an "agricultural economy", concentrating on elevating value instead of merely chasing after output volume.

Multiple commodities of Vietnam currently stand at the top of the world regarding output volume, but the retrieved value remains low. "We do not merely sell products, but we must sell quality, sell brands, sell reliability, and sell the entire story of the product. This demands constructing a synchronously linked value chain, a place where farmers and fishermen cannot perform solitarily, but requires the participation of entire links within the economy," Dr. Nguyen Sy Dung emphasized.

PETITION TO ESTABLISH A NATIONAL-LEVEL STEERING TASKFORCE

One of the strategic solutions highly consented to by experts at the talkshow is the establishment of a specialized "Steering Taskforce" to realize the 100-billion-USD target by 2027.

In current reality, the value chain has not been efficiently connected because core links belonging to public authority responsibilities (such as quarantine, testing, and traceability) exceed the self-handling reach of farmers or enterprises. Therefore, intervention and coordination from State agencies are mandatory.

Contributing opinions regarding this model, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Binh emphasized: "This Steering Taskforce must carry the stature of the Government, of the nation, rather than merely at the level of individual ministries. The steering of ministries and sectors must belong to the Government. Government-linked steering will then be efficient and thorough.”

This high-level Steering Taskforce will hold the role of a conductor: connecting the entirety of commodities and enterprises within the sector into a unified value chain; concurrently holding the power of decision to timely untie obstacles aiming to generate steps of comprehensive breakthrough alterations for Vietnamese agriculture.

Mr. To Nguyen Thanh agreed, arguing that the Steering Taskforce here must not reside at the ministerial level but must reside at the Government level. Because the agricultural export equation does not constitute a solitary equation of any specific ministry or sector, but represents an inter-ministerial equation running seamlessly across the export chain, traveling from agriculture to industry and trade, customs, and related ministries and sectors.

Therefore, if merely at the ministerial level, coordinating with each other will possess certain restrictions. It is crucial to possess a viewpoint carrying a more general, seamless nature, meaning traveling from the upstream source out to the border gate, passing through whichever ministries, sectors, or agencies, there must possess untying points right at that specific time. At that moment, the export path will become interconnected, and even the full-process datafication as well as electronification within the export process can then be executed.

Source: VnEconomy