Vietnam’s agricultural exports rise 14 percent, driving record trade surplus

The agro-forestry-fishery sector posted exports worth 52.31 billion USD in the first nine months of 2025, lifting the national trade surplus and confirming agriculture’s key role amid global market volatility.

Agricultural production in the third quarter of 2025 faced adverse impacts from storms and floods, which inundated large crop areas, particularly in the North Central and Northern provinces. Simultaneously, pig farming encountered significant difficulties due to widespread outbreaks of African Swine Fever.

However, thanks to the timely implementation of response measures by functional agencies and localities to overcome the consequences of natural disasters and epidemics and support the public in stabilizing production, the overall situation for agriculture, forestry, and fishery remained stable through the third quarter and the first nine months of 2025. The sector successfully met domestic consumption needs and supplied processing for export. Production of perennial crops was strong compared to the same period last year, and poultry farming developed well.

Afforestation and timber harvesting proceeded according to plan. While fisheries exploitation in some northern provinces was affected by storms in the third quarter, aquaculture operations, enhanced by high-technology applications and sales prices that ensured profitability, allowed the overall fisheries sector to maintain a solid growth rate for the nine-month period.

Compared to the same period in 2024, the value-added growth rate of the agro-forestry-fishery (AFF) sector reached 3.74% in the third quarter, contributing 5.04% to the economy's total value-added growth. For the first nine months of 2025, the sector's value-added growth was 3.83%, contributing 5.36% to the economy's total added value.

The export turnover for the AFF sector reached 18.47 billion USD in the third quarter of 2025. This brought the total export turnover for the first nine months of 2025 to 52.31 billion USD, a 14% increase compared to the same period last year. This figure also surpassed the nine-month target of 48.14 billion USD by 8.7%. This total was driven by agricultural products (28.51 billion USD, up 16.8%), livestock products (447.5 million USD, up 18.6%), fishery products (8.12 billion USD, up 12.3%), and forestry products (over 13.41 billion USD, up 7.4%).

Total import turnover for the first nine months of 2025 reached 36.38 billion USD, a 12.5% increase year-on-year. This import value included over 22.38 billion USD for agricultural products (up 11.5%), over 3.3 billion USD for livestock products (up 22.1%), over 2.37 billion USD for fishery products (up 27.2%), over 2.4 billion USD for forestry products (up 16.2%), over 5.9 billion USD for production inputs (up 5.4%), and 25.7 million USD for salt (up 0.6%).

Consequently, the AFF sector's trade balance for the first nine months of 2025 is estimated at a surplus of 15.93 billion USD, marking a 17.6% increase over the same period in 2024. This surplus accounted for 92.8% of the national economy's total trade surplus (17.16 billion USD). This is a positive signal, particularly as the production sector continues to face market volatility and abnormal natural disasters.

Khuong Trung