What does Vietnam produce and export?

Vietnam's coffee industry is barely older than its market economy. The Central Highlands around Buon Ma Thuot sit on deep, free-draining basalt soils at a height that suits robusta rather than arabica, and after the Doi Moi reforms of 1986 the state resettled farmers there, extended credit and let households hold land-use rights. Planting on that scale takes four years to bear and then does not stop, which is why the expansion of the 1990s pushed world prices to their lowest levels in decades by 2001. Vietnam grew 18% of the world's coffee in 2024 (FAOSTAT) and held 12% of world coffee export value in 2024 (CEPII BACI); the share of value is lower than the share of volume because robusta sells at a discount to arabica.

Rice comes from the other end of the country. The Mekong Delta is flat, warm and watered year-round, and double or triple cropping is normal. Vietnam produced 5.3% of the world's rice in 2024 (FAOSTAT) and took 10% of world rice export value in 2024 (CEPII BACI), mostly mid-grade white rice sold to the Philippines, Indonesia and West Africa. It also bought 4.3% of world rice import value in 2024 (CEPII BACI), largely cheap grain from Cambodia and India for milling, animal feed and processing. Rubber, planted by French companies on the red soils of the southeast from the early twentieth century, gave 9.0% of world natural rubber production in 2024 (FAOSTAT).

The import side is a factory order book rather than a shortage. Vietnam grows almost no cotton but spins and weaves a great deal of it, so it bought 14% of world cotton import value in 2024 (CEPII BACI) and shipped the yarn and garments out again. Feed for its pig and aquaculture industries explains 5.3% of world corn import value in 2024 (CEPII BACI).