This year’s festival included an art installation of a coconut road, acoconut foods festival, a tour of a coconut plantation and a coconutcarnival to celebrate the future of coconuts. A seminar on how toincrease the value of coconut products was also held along with a beautycontest, for the title ‘Miss Coconut Land’.
Duringthe event, Ben Tre People’s Committee met with several domestic andforeign organisations and businesses to promote Ben Tre coconut brandand attract more investment to the area.
During the festival,six investment projects with a total capital of 86 billion VND and 45.6million USD were granted licences by Ben Tre provincial People’sCommittee.
In addition, the province also signedmemorandums of understanding (MoUs) on investment cooperation for fiveprojects, with capital of over 2,500 billion VND.
The event honoured local farmers as well as scientists, researchers andbusinesses, who have helped to develop the Ben Tre coconut trade mark,not only in Vietnam but also overseas.
Theprovinces coconut products have been exported to 50 countries andterritories across the world, accounting for 25 percent of the totalindustrial production value in Ben Tre province and 40 percent of itsexport turnover.
The festival also helped toencourage trade promotion, investment, tourism and marketing in the areaand Vietnam in general.
At the closingceremony, the organisers announced three national records for productsmade from the coconut tree, which were recognised by Vietnam’s Record Book.
They also presentedcertificates of merit and mementos to 14 businesses that produce artsand handicraft products who had won a competition during the festival tocreate products from the coconut tree.-VNA