Germany - Vietnam urged to step up export of aqua-products, coffee to Germany

HCMC – Vietnam’s export sector holds great potential of meeting high German demand for quality aqua-products and coffee, said the State Secretary at Germany’s Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection.

Robert Kloos told reporters at the Food and Hotel Vietnam 2011 in HCMC on Wednesday that German consumers wanted aqua-products from different markets, including Vietnam. Therefore, he called for Vietnamese companies to speed up exports, particularly basa fish, to the German market.

Kloos said Vietnam’s basa was one of the products that German consumers favored.

Coffee is one of Vietnam’s major export earners in its trade with the biggest economy in Europe. Kloos said Germany was also interested in buying Vietnamese coffee.

Kloos demonstrated Germany imported more than 500 million euros worth of goods from Vietnam last year, including 160 million euros worth of aqua-products and 250 million euros of coffee. Sales of these two products rose 6% and 15% respectively over 2009.

Shipments of Germany’s agricultural products to Vietnam are still low compared to other markets in Asia. Last year, the European country earned about US$70 million from exporting food and beverages to Vietnam while Germany shipped agricultural goods worth around US$250 million and US$500 million to Hong Kong and Japan respectively.   

Therefore, Kloos said there remained much potential in the expanding Vietnamese market for German companies to tap and export more dairy products, meat and bread and other products. This is why he and other officials of the German government as well as German companies are taking part in the Food and Hotel Vietnam to promote products of their country.

Kloos pinned high hopes that Germany’s participation in the food and hotel show and his trip to Vietnam would help create a breakthrough in trade in this area between Germany and the emerging economy in the Southeast Asia.

Kloos said he had discussed with Vietnam’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development about use of high technology for the agricultural sector and that Germany was ready to assist in this area.

However, Kloos said Vietnam needed to meet certain conditions if the country wanted to develop a hi-tech agricultural sector. An example is a farm with about three employees and several cows is unable to apply high technology and should not do this, he noted.

Kloos also underscored the importance of greater efforts for human resource development in Vietnam for the agricultural sector and having consultancy from the countries owning high technology in agricultural production, and Germany had experiences in this.

Kloos said Germany had an advanced agricultural sector as it started to develop its agricultural sector 20-30 years ago. During this period, German companies have applied technological advances to diversify and turn out products that match consumers’ increasing demand for quality.

By Mong Binh - The Saigon Times Daily

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