Harvesting rice in the Mekong Delta province of Long An (Photo: VNA)Ta Thu Trang from the Institute for Policy and Strategy under the Ministry ofAgriculture and Rural Development (MARD) said the country's agriculture sectorhad made significant progress in recent decades.
From 2010-20, Vietnam agriculture maintained a 2.83% annual growth rate onaverage, accounting for as much as 12% of the entire world's rice export.
Foreign investors have played an important role in the country's success tomodernise its agriculture sector by introducing advanced technologies andcreating thousands of jobs. However, there was still a lot of untappedpotential in the sector.
Trang said during 2009-21, foreign investors only registered under 2,000projects, just 5.7% of all projects in Vietnam with 17.64 billion USD worth ofinvestment, or 4.3% of total investment.
"For an agriculture-based country such as Vietnam, the amount of foreigninvestment in the sector has been, at best, modest," she said.
The vast majority of said projects were from Asian countries, which mostly wentto the area surrounding the capital city of Hanoi and the Mekong Delta thanksto relatively developed infrastructure already in place, she added.
In addition, there have been incidents in which foreign projects deliberatelytook advantage of the numerous free trade agreements signed by Vietnam tofabricate made-in-Vietnam products without investing in production within thecountry.
Dr Nguyen Anh Phong, head of MARD's information centre said in order to bringforeign investment in Vietnam's agriculture sector to 34 billion USD by the endof 2030, there was an urgent need to increase collaboration with largecorporations across all industries in the sectors, especially in technologytransfer.
However, it's important to focus on bolstering the domestic supply chains forkey input, which Vietnam traditionally has been overly reliant on import, suchas seeds, livestock feed, fertiliser, vaccine, medicine, pesticides, managementsoftware, slaughter lines and processing technology.
In an earlier development, MARD put forward a proposal for a number of policychanges to planning larger production centres that employed state-of-the-artequipment, to filter investors to select the most suitable technology and amechanism to purchase raw material from farmers on a large scaledirectly.
Cao Tri Cong, deputy-chairman of the Association of Vietnam Timber and ForestProduct, said it was high time the country invested in supporting industries towood manufacturing. The fast-growing industry has been largely reliant on rawmaterial import for decades with little to no meaningful policies that favour domesticsuppliers.
Dr Nguyen Anh Tuan, deputy-chairman of Vietnam's Association of ForeignInvested Enterprises, said, however, the proposal must go deeper into finerdetails such as which industry must be made a priority and where it will belocated.
Tuan said to double the amount of foreign investment in the sector from nowuntil the end of 2030, Vietnam must have a detailed action plan and it must beimplemented as soon as possible.
He urged MARD to pay more attention to medicinal herbs, a rising star in recentyears among the sector's industries, with still a lot of room to grow and valueto be added.
"MARD should consult with local communities to help them form ideas as towhich plant and animal they can best produce. In addition, there is a need tobuild a national database to help with advertising and promotion to attractforeign investment," he said.
He added MARD should make a shortlist of international corporations that areconsidered suitable and desirable for the central government.
Duong Danh Cong from Agrotrade Vietnam under MARD called for a task forcespecialising in finding foreign agriculture investors.
"The task force must not only have a deep understanding of the needs ofpotential investors but also the abilities of local communities to find theright investor for the right region," he said./.
VNA
