An Empirical Study On Vietnam’s Participation in The Global Agricultural Value Chain

Agriculture is one of the vital economic sectors in the economic development of Vietnam. Using two datasets from UNCTAD's MRIO database, the paper aims to assess Vietnam’s participation in the global agricultural value chain in 2010-2017 and compare it with ASEAN-5 countries’ participation by calculating backward linkage, forward linkage, position, and participation index. Research results show that Vietnam is moving towards the upstream place and the country’s level of participation tends to increase mainly due to forward linkage participation. There is more diversification in the agricultural export markets but a high concentration of the import markets in Asia. While some commodity groups such as forestry, pocks, sugarcane, rubber, and paddy have more advantages when participating in the global value chain, other groups such as fishery, poultry, cow, and tea have faced passive participation. In comparison with ASEAN-5 countries, Vietnam's participation index is relatively high, but its position index lags. The paper ends by providing some policy implications for Vietnam to improve its participation in the agricultural global value chain, focusing on taking advantage of free trade agreements, applying advanced technologies in agriculture, strengthening brand names for agricultural products, and improving the quality of logistics services.