Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Finland have just signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on food and forestry co-operation.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Finland sign a Memorandum of Understanding on food and forestry co-operation in Hanoi on October 10. Photo by the Embassy of Finland.
The MoU was signed on October 10 between Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan and Finnish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry of Antti Kurvinen during his official visit to Vietnam.
Talking to local media, Finnish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Antti Kurvinen said that his visit was made following growing interest in Vietnam in addition to the EU-Vietnam free trade agreement that had opened new opportunities.
"We’ve achieved one important result in our co-operation before this visit, with an inspection visit by Vietnamese animal health experts to Finland last week," the Finnish official said. "This visit was related to the future export of pork and poultry meat and breeding pigs from Finland to Vietnam. I hope the exports could be started soon, now that this inspection has been executed."
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan (right) and Finnish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry of Antti Kurvinen at the signing event.
According to the minister, the Finnish Agri-Agency for Food and Forest Development (FFD) has been working in Vietnam with forestry co-operatives and their umbrella organisations to support smallholder forestry and promote PEFC certification in the country.
"FFD works through a twinning model, and the twinning organisation in Finland is a forest management association," he said. "By now FFD has gathered a strong knowledge of the forest value chains in Vietnam and has provided support for Finnish companies interested in the Vietnamese markets."
Talking about Vietnamese seafood products, Kurvinen said that Vietnam had made almost EUR 4 million from seafood export value to Finland in 2021. And Vietnamese fishery products were appreciated by Finnish customers.
"As the seafood export route to the Nordic countries is open, it’s up to the business people from Vietnam and Finland to get together to promote exports," he said. "We’ve understood that Vietnam has been discussing the IUU issue with the EU Commission and these discussions are advancing quite well. Let’s wait for the results of these discussions.”
The minister said he hoped that his visit would help improve trade relations between the two countries by developing further understanding of each other’s markets.
"Trade in foodstuffs between the two countries has huge potential as the trade figures are still quite low," he stressed. "There is also still room for growth in water and forestry sectors."