Thailand is the leading producer and exporter of agricultural products in Southeast Asia, but Vietnamese agricultural products still have many opportunities in this market.

According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy, Deputy Director of the Export Support Center under the Department of Trade Promotion (Ministry of Industry and Trade), Thailand is a powerhouse in exporting agricultural products in the world, but this country also has a very high demand in importing of fresh fruits and vegetables.

This is an opportunity for Vietnamese agricultural export enterprises to explore this potential market, which has annual import turnover reaching billions of US$. In 2020, Thailand imported more than US$ 2.6 billion of fresh and processed vegetables.

Lychee and dragon fruit are among many kinds of fruits of Vietnam that Thailand cannot compete with. Many Thai businesses import dragon fruit and lychee from Vietnam to sell in large supermarket systems. In addition, Thai enterprises also import raw agricultural products for processing.

Currently, products such as seafood, vegetables, cashew nuts, coffee, pepper, and many kinds of fresh fruit… of Vietnam are also being favored by Thai consumers.

Understanding the need to import agricultural products from Thailand, in recent years, a number of large supermarket chains in Vietnam have taken opportunities to bring Vietnamese agricultural products to this market through different channels.

MM Mega Maket Vietnam and Big C in Thailand are both owned by Thailand’s TCC Group. Taking advantage of that, in the first quarter of 2018, MM Mega Maket Vietnam exported more than 100 tons of Vietnamese agricultural products for the first order, including yellow sweet potato, purple sweet potato, dragon fruit, dried fruit, rice paper… for consumption at 700 Big C supermarkets in Thailand. Since then, MM Mega Maket Vietnam has regularly exported a variety of Vietnamese agricultural products to the Big C system in Thailand and has maintained steadily in this market.

Central Retail Vietnam is one of the retail systems exporting Vietnamese goods, including agricultural products, to the Thai market. Since 2016 until now, Central Group (Thailand) and Central Retail Vietnam (members of Central Group) have continuously coordinated with the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam to organize the annual event “Vietnamese Goods Week in Thailand” at Central World.