The General Statistics Office's socio-economic report for November and 11 months of 2024 said that as of November 20, the winter-spring rice output reached 1,403.4 thousand hectares, equal to 95.7% compared to the same period in 2023. Of which, the Northern region harvested 933.8 thousand hectares, while the Southern region reached 469.6 thousand hectares.
Notably, the autumn-winter rice cultivation area in the Mekong Delta reached 717.9 thousand hectares, an increase of 22 thousand hectares compared to the previous year, with a harvest output of 414.3 thousand hectares, an increase of 3.2%. Southern localities also promoted winter-spring rice cultivation, reaching 500.3 thousand hectares, an increase of nearly 30% compared to 2023, mainly concentrated in the Mekong Delta.
Along with that, this year's winter crop focuses on high-value crops such as corn, sweet potatoes and beans, to increase economic value and stabilize the output market.
In the livestock sector, the total herds of buffalo and cattle continued to decrease, by 3.1% and 0.4% respectively compared to the previous year. However, the herds of pigs and poultry grew positively, by 3.5% and 2.9% respectively, thanks to good disease control.
Forestry in November recorded growth in exploited timber output, reaching 2,366.2 thousand m³, up 7.5% over the same period last year, although the area of newly planted forests decreased by 4.9%, reaching 31.4 thousand hectares.
In the first 11 months of 2024, the country planted 263.9 thousand hectares of new forests, up 2.4%, and exploited 20,855.8 thousand m3 of wood, up 7.9%. However, the damaged forest area in the month increased nearly 2.6 times, to 78.2 hectares, while the total area in the first 11 months decreased by 7.8% compared to the same period last year, down to 1,585.9 hectares.
The fisheries sector continued to be a bright spot with November output estimated at 864.8 thousand tons, up 3.4% over the same period. In the 11 months, total output reached 8,754.6 thousand tons, up 2.5%. Of which, aquaculture output increased by 3.9%, reaching 5,189.4 thousand tons, while exploitation output reached 3,565.2 thousand tons, up slightly by 0.7%.
These results show that the agriculture, forestry and fishery sectors continue to play an important role in the economy, despite difficulties in weather and market fluctuations. This is the basis for rural sectors to continue to develop stably in the coming time.
