When Vietnam joins the World Trade Organization (WTO), there will be a rush of imports into Vietnamese market. It is foreseen that agriculture will be the most seriously-affected sector due to its low competitiveness.

“When joining WTO, we can penetrate into the world farming product market which reached $548 billion in terms of turnover per year. Vietnam’s farming and seafood exports will enjoy the lowest duties and elimination of non-tariff barriers ” said an economic specialist when he forecasted about the future of Vietnamese farming products “However, on the other hand, it is the farmers who will suffer most from the bad consequences from our international integration”.

According to the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, lowered import duties on farming products under Bilateral Trade Agreement with the US, will make it hard for the domestic products, especially beef and pork farming, to compete with imports from other countries. Currently, cost of farming production in Vietnam remains on the high side. Therefore, it is likely that wide range of farming products from other countries especially China may win in the competition, even right in our domestic market.

Dr. Vo Mai, the president of  Vietnam Fruit Association said that: “Our farmers are not fully aware of WTO, they simply consider this as Government’s business. While keeping this mindset, how can they compete with producers from other countries when Vietnam joins the WTO? I think that if Vietnamese farmers want to win in fierce competition in domestic market, they should prioritize the quality of their products as only high-quality products can be competitive on the market. Meanwhile, the farming sector is still scattered into small scale production, leading to low quality of our farming produce. For example, even when Vietnam has not joined the WTO,  foreign fruits products has outweighed our local ones in domestic market”.

According to Mr. Pham Van Minh, director of Phu An Sinh Company (Hochiminh city), firms specializing in trading chicken meat in the domestic market may suffer from a great loss because the upper hand of the US market is that it consumes only the chests of chicken and the remains are exported at very low prices. The farmers who raise cows and pigs, to some extend, can cope with this hard situation because the consumers haven’t got used to using frozen beef and pork.

Supports in accordance with WTO’s regulations

According to Doan Ngoc Bon, Vice president of VCCI, to integrate into the WTO effectively, our government, first and foremost, should have suitable policies to support the development of agriculture. These must be created in such a new way that fits the WTO’s regulations. In details, the government should pay more attention to develop the infrastructure for agriculture and the countryside (roads, electricity, and irrigation), apply advanced technology, provide with updated information about the markets, and improve the human resources,...

One of the recent positive signs is that many enterprises are making projects to support the farmers. From the middle of the year, Metro- a whole sale supermarket system has signed a contract to consume farming products from 12 producers in Hochiminh city. This resulted from the order of People’s Committee of Hochiminh city in supporting the program of transferring the city’s agricultural structure. In mid July, Plant Protection Department cooperated with An Giang Plants Protect Joint Stock Company (AGGPS) to execute a program to instruct the farmers to grow vegetables as the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP). This program was designed for farmers from 22 cities and provinces in the South in order to help them to improve the knowledge of science and technology to produce fresh vegetable according to the international standards.

Vietnam Farmers’ Union has organized many programs to honor Vietnamese farming products so as to help the farmers to improve their competitiveness. The prize “ Vietnam golden buffalo” which was for the first time created in all fields and products related to agriculture are considered a great improvement in building trademarks for Vietnamese farming products.

According to Vietnam’s multilateral commitments in negotiations for joining the WTO, subsidies for agricultural produce should be removed immediately. This information does not seem to be a big shock for exporting enterprises.

Nguyen Van Lang, General Secretary of the Viet Nam Cashew Association told the reporter that: “Cashew exports gain hundreds of million dollars in revenue each year but they don’t need any subsidy from the government except for a cashew promoting program valued at VND 600 million at the beginning of this year. Vietnam’s executing its commitments , I think, will not affect them a lot”.

Pham Chi Lan, the former Vice President  of VCCI said that: “I think that it is unnecessary to worry about the cutting of export subsidies in agriculture because this subsidy is very small for such a long time. Moreover, it is not effectively carried out, awards are not satisfactory while the procedure is very complicated…”

"This is a good chance for us to look back and carry out more effectively. For example, the government should invest more in researches for development in order to get more competitive kinds of plants and animals. Besides it is also necessary to invest in market research. Enterprises when penetrating into the market often lacks this information to set up suitable ways of approach…One more thing that I want to mention are that for such a long time all the government’s subsidies are allocated among only state-owned companies but these ones often do their business ineffectively.”