Customers buy food at a supermarket in HCM City. (Photo: VNA)The two projects play an important role in the development of thecity's food processing industry in the 2021-2030 period. The industry is amongthe four key industries that the city prioritises, it said.
Ly Kim Chi, chairwoman of the association, said the city currentlyhas many cold storages units but they are at small scale and not modern, sothey do not meet all the requirements for cold storage.
The municipal administration, therefore, has approved a coldstorage system development project and assigned the Department of Industry and Trade incollaboration with the association to deploy it, she said.
The cold storage units will have an average area of 5-10ha and belocated at areas with convenient traffic and not too far the city centre. Theymust be at international quality to store and preserve many groups of goods,including imported ones and locally produced products, she said.
“But we have not found an appropriate site for building the coldstorage despite making intensive searches,” she said.
Funds for building the cold storage system are contributed bybusinesses in the industry. The association did not ask the city government tofund for the project, but wanted the city to have policies to support theindustry to implement the project, she said.
Chi said a material storage area is very important to the foodprocessing industry, adding that currently, material inputs for food processingfirms in the city are mainly supplied by farmers in the southwest provinces.
Therefore, the industry needs to link with provinces to buildstable material storage areas for each commodity, and instruct farmers to adoptcertain requirements in their crop production to yield clean raw materials sofirms can process products for export to fastidious markets such as the US andEU, she said.
Building raw material storage areas should go in tandem withlogistics development. The current transport infrastructure is not that good,pushing up costs to firms. If ring roads that connect the city withneighbouring provinces are soon completed, they would help HCM City foodprocessing enterprises reduce costs, she said.
While other sectors witnessed a drop in revenue last year, thefood and foodstuff sector recorded over 10 per cent growth in revenue in 2002,and enterprises have had many export orders from several markets for this year,Chi said./.
VNA
