According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), May alone saw businesses spend US$355 million on importing raw materials for animal feed production.

The import of other raw materials, including oilseed meal, wheat, fish meal, bone meal, animal protein, and a mixture of trace elements, stood at an estimated US$500 million in May, resulting in a total of US$2.04 billion in the January - May period, down 2% year on year.

Domestic production of corn and soybeans has met nearly 40% of the demand from the animal feed industry, meaning Vietnam has over the past years imported a huge amount of corn and soybeans to feed domestic production.

Soybean imports stood at 887,000 tonnes during the first five months of the year, worth US$564 million, down 3.1% in volume and 8.8% in value from the same period a year earlier.

Meanwhile, corn imports gained 3.21 million tonnes in the reviewed period, costing US$1.08 billion, down 9.6% in volume and 11.9% in value year on year.

Elsewhere, Vietnam’s export value of livestock products in May fetched US$44 million, bringing the five-month export value of the products to US$190 million, up 34.5% over the same period from 2022.