US agriculture secretary to visit Viet Nam

US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack will travel to Viet Nam and China in mid-November in a bid to strengthen bilateral trade relations and promote the American brand throughout the Asia-Pacific region, Vilsack announced here on Thursday at the National Journal's Healthy Food, Healthy Planet Policy Summit.

Vilsack would become the first sitting US Secretary of Agriculture to visit Viet Nam.

Partnerships with growing markets like those in China and Viet Nam were integral to the strength of the US economy in the decades ahead, Vilsack said.

Viet Nam is one of the world's fastest growing economies and an important market for US agricultural products. In the past decade, Viet Nam has jumped from the fiftieth to fifteenth position as a market for US farm exports, according to the US Department of Agriculture website aginfo.net.

"Viet Nam is a country I think that understands the importance of modern agricultural technology including biotechnology so it's an opportunity for us to get an ally in that effort," Vilsack said on the aginfo.net site.

The visit to Viet Nam, he said, would also be an opportunity to continue to build on the enormous growth that US agricultural exporters have seen in that market over the past 15 years – going from US$175 million to $2.3 billion, a 1,200-per-cent increase.

In Viet Nam, Vilsack will meet with Vietnamese officials, agricultural students, and US food and agricultural enterprises. He will travel to China to attend meetings for the 22nd Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade.