By Adam Allington, KWMU
st. louis, mo – The Missouri Department of Agriculture has announced that state exports to Vietnam have more than doubled over the past five years.
Vietnam accounts for only a small fraction of Missouri exports, but getting in now might mean larger returns in the future.
Mark Hitt with the Missouri Department of Agriculture sums up the Vietnamese market as "a sizeable market of 90 million people, yet small enough that you can wrap your around."
Hitt says Vietnam's growing manufacturing base is an ever-increasing market for products such as Missouri-grown cotton and processed food.
"Vietnam would be a relatively small market, but growing," he said, in an interview. "We've been in the market for almost 10 years now and we were probably there a little early, but it seems that now it's really starting to pay off."
Missouri now exports nearly $10 million in product to Vietnam annually, which is still small compared to countries like South Korea which imported $1.6 billion worth of Missouri goods last year.