The latest data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development showed Viet Nam was importing around 70,000 tonnes of pork and pork products at the end of the first six months.

In addition, imports of milk and dairy products are estimated at $ 650 million (up 14.5 percent), raising the value of imports of meat, meat by-products and edible animal by-products. to $ 727 million (up 51.5 percent).

The country imported 12,800 breeding pigs and over 2.2 million breeding poultry in the first six months of the year.

The main import markets for Viet Nam’s meat are Russia, the United States, India, the Netherlands and Poland.

Russia was the largest market supplying meat and meat products to Viet Nam after the first five months of this year with 45,750 tonnes, worth $ 97.49 million, up 493.2% in volume and 437.5% in value compared to the same period last year.

Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper quoted Nguyen Van Trong, deputy director of the General Livestock Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, as saying that due to the influence of African swine fever, the amount of pork imported from other countries to Viet Nam increased sharply.

For example, Viet Nam imported over 141,000 tonnes of fresh, chilled or frozen pork last year, worth US $ 334.44 million, up 382% in volume and 502.9% in value compared to 2019.

Trong said Viet Nam has continued to retain a large amount of imported pork from the start of the year until now, but in fact, foreign pork only made up about four percent of the total amount of meat. in the country, so it was not a concern.

He also added that in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, pork consumption is dropping sharply, so it was predicted that the amount of meat imported this year would be lower than last year.

In June, the livestock industry’s herd rebuilding work had positive results – the pig herd grew by 11.6% with meat production reaching over 2 million tonnes.

Cattle and poultry herds have recovered with a total production of meat of all kinds estimated at 3.16 million tonnes, an annual growth of 22.58%.

The greatest concern then was for the farmers. While commodity prices were low, production costs were high, and the pandemic made transportation difficult, meaning farmers face a risk of losses, Trong said.

He also said that prices for live pigs had fallen sharply, but consumers still had to bear high purchase prices.

The average market price for pork is still 120,000-130,000 VND (about $ 5) per kilogram.

The reason was that there were too many intermediate steps in the process of distributing pork to the market, resulting in difficulties between the three stages of production, supply and consumption.

Source: VNS

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