European Green Deal has set out new challenging requirements for the production and export of Vietnamese agricultural and food products to the EU market. And similar to all impacted manufacturing and exporting industries, agricultural and food products are supposed to change considerably to meet higher green standards, more complicated requirements of information and origin tracking and pay higher cost to comply with these requirements.

However, in the context that these new requirements are in the proposal stage, EU green policies in this area have currently not changed the status of minimum legislative requirements with which Vietnamese export of agricultural and food products must comply. Thus, Vietnamese farmers, producers, processors, exporters of agricultural and food products still have a certain time to prepare themselves for the change and in the longer run for their adaptation to and usage of opportunities from the trend of green transition of the EU in particular and the world export market in general. 

Specifically, besides general recommendations for all impacted exporting industries, Vietnamese farmers, manufacturers, processors, exporters of agricultural and food products to the EU (by themselves or within groups of associations of businesses) are recommended to focus their attention and have timely actions for EU green standards by:

- Studying and regularly updating changes in EU policies relating to agricultural and food products in general, especially actions to implement the “Farm to Fork” Strategy, thereby (i) understanding the trend, impacting capacity to their production and export; and (ii) immediately identifying tentative policies that can impact their manufacture and export for early preparation;  

- Thorough research of regulations (in draft or already adopted) within EU green policies framework ti identify specific requirements for their exported products; thereby having the preparation and revision to get ready to adapt to these requirements when they officially come into force in practice;

- Thinking about the strategy of green transition in the production and exports in the longer run to step in advance, exploiting the market of green and sustainable products and green customer set in the EU as well as many other regions.

Source: Report "EU Green Deal and Vietnam's Exports - The case of the agricultural, food and textile industries" – Center for WTO and International Trade

• Ways of European Green Deal’s impacts on Vietnam’s exports
• EU Green Deal and Vietnam's export: Impacted sectors
• EU Green Deal and Vietnam's export: Challenges of awareness change and enhancement
• EU Green Deal and Vietnam's export: Challenge in capability of response, compliance
• EU Green Deal and Vietnam's export: Challenge in the capacity of paying compliance fees