FOOD security will be high on the agenda during President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s state visit to Vietnam this week, a senior Trade department official said.

Speaking on ANC' "Market Edge" program on Monday, Trade Undersecretary Maria Blanca Kim Bernando-Lokin said a rice deal was a particular priority given the El Niño weather pattern's expected impact on domestic output.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. with First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos arrives at the Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, Vietnam on Monday, January 29, 2024. President Marcos Jr., will engage with key Vietnamese officials in discussions about maritime, agriculture, and food security, and meet with the Filipino community during his two-day state visit in Socialist Republic of Vietnam. (KJ ROSALES/PPA POOL)

"[W]e do have challenges from the weather and ... this is an immediate measure or intervention that the President is taking," she said.

Vietnam is the country's biggest supplier of rice and Bernardo-Lokin said that Marcos was also looking to tap its expertise in other areas of agriculture.

"[I]t is the aim of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to be able to modernize agriculture and to be able to bring in partners that could help us in modernizing our agriculture sector and at the same time [ensure that] our goals in the 8-Point Socioeconomic Agenda are met," she said.

The government, she continued, is also looking for "new industries that we can leverage on, we can tap or we can bring in" even as the country moves to shore up its strengths in electronics, information technology, and business process outsourcing.

Marcos left on Monday for Hanoi, accompanied by First Lady Marie Louise Araneta-Marcos and other key Cabinet officials, on the invitation of Vietnamese President Vo Van Thuong.

During the two-day trip, the President will also meet Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue "where discussions on the multifaceted relationship and ways of exploring deepening of cooperation across different fronts will be expected."

Talks are expected to include the issue of the South China Sea where both countries have overlapping claims and where China has aggressively staked its presence.

Marcos will also meet with the Filipino community in Vietnam before he returns to Manila.

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