Vietnam’s Halal Herbal Medicine Industry: Scaling from Local Cooperatives to Global Halal Value Chains

From small-scale farming areas to integrated production, processing, and distribution chains, Vietnam’s herbal medicine cooperatives are steadily rising, strengthening linkages with enterprises and setting their sights on international markets. Quality standardization, digital transformation, and access to the Halal market are increasingly seen as the key drivers that will enable Vietnam’s herbal cooperatives to make a significant breakthrough in the coming years.

The 2025 Herbal Medicine Trade Connectivity, Exhibition and Product Showcase Conference was jointly organized by the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance and the Trade Promotion Agency under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, with the participation of the National Institute of Medicinal Materials (Ministry of Health), domestic and international trade promotion organizations, Vietnamese pharmaceutical companies, and herbal medicine cooperatives nationwide.

Related: Vietnam Aims to Become Halal Hub of ASEAN

Vietnam’s Untapped Strength in Medicinal Resources

In his opening remarks, Mr. Dinh Hong Thai emphasized that Vietnam is among Southeast Asia’s most resource-rich countries in medicinal plants, with more than 5,000 recorded medicinal species, of which over 1,300 are already exploited and applied in traditional medicine and the processing industry. Herbal medicine is not only a valuable natural resource, but also a crystallization of indigenous knowledge, ethnic culture, and the country’s potential for green and sustainable economic development.

Under Decision No. 1976/QD-TTg of the Prime Minister, the herbal medicine sector is being systematically developed with the objective of establishing and expanding concentrated raw material cultivation zones nationwide. In parallel, Decision No. 1719/QD-TTg on the National Target Program for socio-economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas has attracted investment, created livelihoods, and improved incomes through the development of stable, large-scale, and sustainable herbal cultivation areas.

Within this framework, cooperatives and cooperative groups play a core role in developing raw material zones, conserving genetic resources, conducting preliminary processing, and supplying herbal materials to processing facilities—thereby forming complete value chains based on indigenous medicinal resources.

Herbal Cooperatives as the Backbone of the Value Chain

Vietnam currently has more than 600 herbal medicine cooperatives, supplying raw materials to domestic processing plants and export markets. In recent years, these cooperatives have made remarkable progress, establishing standardized cultivation zones and forging partnerships with enterprises to move toward deeper processing and closed-loop value chains.

This model not only generates stable employment and income for local communities, but also contributes to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem restoration, and the development of green agriculture and ecological rural areas.

The northern province of Thai Nguyen stands out as a prime example of effective integration between production, research, processing, and consumption. Many agricultural cooperatives in the province have proactively restructured crop patterns, developing concentrated herbal cultivation zones in districts such as Vo Nhai, Dinh Hoa, Phu Luong, Dai Tu, and Dong Hy. Early successes have been recorded by cooperatives such as Thai Nguyen Green Herbal Cooperative, Dai Tu Medicinal Bio Cooperative, Linh Duong Organic Agriculture Cooperative, and Tam Tra Thai Cooperative, whose products have obtained OCOP, VietGAP, and GACP-WHO certifications and are already available on e-commerce platforms

The “Golden Key” to the Global Halal Market

A major focus of the conference was the strategic orientation to support herbal producers in accessing the Halal market-a market characterized by vast scale, rapid growth, and stringent requirements for quality, safety, and traceability.

According to Ms. Annisa Nhien, CEO of HALAL Vietnam, Halal-certified herbal products could become a “golden key” for Vietnam to unlock access to the global Muslim market. She noted that Vietnam holds strong advantages in its rich herbal resources, tropical medicinal plants, valuable indigenous herbs, and its rapidly growing capacity in traditional medicine and functional food production.

“Obtaining Halal certification is not difficult, especially for herbal products, which are inherently natural and closely aligned with Halal principles,” Ms. Annisa Nhien affirmed.

Experts at the conference recommended leveraging these advantages by developing a comprehensive Halal herbal ecosystem, including:

• Standardized Halal-compliant raw material zones

• Processing facilities certified under GMP and Halal standards

• Credible on-site Halal certification bodies

• International partnership and distribution networks

• Regular trade promotion and market access activities

In this ecosystem, the State plays a facilitating role through strategic planning and supportive policies, such as subsidies for Halal certification costs and export incentives – while enterprises and cooperatives act as the main drivers of innovation and implementation.