Value added agricultural products

Businesses invest in technology to seize opportunities from new FTAs (Photo: VietnamPlus)

– The European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) officially took effect on August 1, ushering in a new chapter in economic and trade relations between the two sides.

Especially, with the approval of the deal, the European Union (EU) – a demanding market with the world’s highest standards, officially recognised Vietnam’s efforts in reforms, building market economic institutions and sustainable development. The move also showed the EU’s determination to step up cooperative ties with the Southeast Asian country.

Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cung said the EVFTA is also a factor encouraging investors, especially multinational groups, to select Vietnam as a destination for investment and restructuring global value chains.

Like any other free trade agreements, under the EVFTA, the two sides committed to opening their markets for each other. The level of tax reduction towards the removal and application of 0 percent tariffs to almost all Vietnamese exports to the EU proved the latter’s commitment to actually open its market for Vietnam, he said.

For Vietnam, due to its lower competitive capacity, the country has more time to open its market for the EU. The fact will create equal competition for Vietnamese businesses and also offer them opportunities.

The EU currently is the second export market of Vietnam though it is not in the top import markets of the Southeast Asian country, Cung said.

The flow of EU investment into Vietnam is now lower than those from many Asian countries, but the deal is expected to help more Vietnamese products to penetrate the EU market, he said, adding that it is also hoped to help Vietnam to import more materials, machines and equipment, especially technologies, and draw more investment from the bloc.

The new generation FTA offers commitments to not only trade and investment, but also state-owned enterprises (SOEs), government procurements and sustainable trade, Cung said, noting these commitments are both pressure and driving force for Vietnam to accelerate reforms.

Private enterprises of Vietnam are also expected to benefit from the EVFTA, he added.

According to the expert, Vietnam has taken full advantage of free trade agreements the country has signed with partners, clearly shown in the two-digit growth of its export turnover over the past years.

However, foreign investors in Vietnam have outperformed domestic businesses in making the most of these free trade agreements, Cung stressed.

Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cung (Photo: VietnamPlus)

But more importantly, the EVFTA is expected to help Vietnam speed up its institutional reforms. This time, the institutional reforms does not aim to meet the deal’s requirements like when Vietnam joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO), but to boost the development of the Vietnamese business community, especially private enterprises.

Under the EVFTA’s provisions, Vietnam will find it hard to exports products to the EU market if they are not produced in an environmentally-friendly way with social responsibility or without using employees meeting international standards, Cung noted.

Therefore, domestic businesses must change their ways of production, he said, stressed that sectors and localities should directly support the business community to help them change their awareness and ways of production to meet the requirements of the market so that Vietnam and its enterprises can take full advantage of opportunities offered by the EVFTA.

Regarding COVID-19, Cung said the pandemic has brought about global impacts, even stronger effects in developed nations. The world’s demand has declined, directly affecting exports and overseas investment.

In the short term, if COVID-19 is yet to be controlled in countries across the world, Vietnam’s export growth will fall short of expectations like before the pandemic broke out, the expert said.

However, Cung said, there will be opportunities in the short term as the world’s demand for essential goods. The demand for agricultural products and food which meet the market’s requirements will continue growing, he said.

Currently, businesses are restructuring global value chains while Vietnam has signed free trade agreements with important partners, including the EU, he said, stressing that it is also a factor encouraging investors, especially multinational groups, to select Vietnam as a destination for investment and restructuring their global value chains./.

With the acquisition of Golden Farm, ADM aims to expand its range of Wisium premix offerings in the Vietnamese market

“The Wisium line of premix products and solutions is a recognised market leader, known for bringing together global expertise, resources, and innovation with local insights to create value-added, tailor-made solutions for each customer,” said Gerald Wilflingseder, president, ADM Animal Nutrition Asia-Pacific. “We’re excited to expand our vast capabilities in Vietnam, and look forward to working with customers across the country to meet and exceed their premix needs.”

ADM’s Wisium offers millers, integrators and home mixers a strong and dedicated partnership with a unique focus on enhancing quality, productivity, and profitability performance.

With the addition of Golden Farm, Wisium will now serve customers in Vietnam with a state-of-the-art premix facility in Long Khanh, Dong Nai, with international quality standards and the capability to offer a wide array of innovative products and services to customers across Vietnam.

“Following the launch of Wisium’s line of products and services in Vietnam two years ago, this strategic step widens our range of value-added premix products and services across the country,” said François Fernandez, vice president, Wisium Premix and Services. “We’ve been expanding Wisium’s capabilities around the globe, and we’re excited to continue to invest across Southeast Asia to expand and strengthen our position as a leader in the premix and services businesses.”

Wisium is the international premix business brand of ADM, a long-time global leader in animal nutrition. Wisium, which joined ADM as part of the strategic acquisition of Neovia in 2019, offers millers, integrators and home mixers a strong and dedicated partnership with a unique focus on enhancing quality, productivity and profitability performance. For any species, Wisium experts deliver tailor-made solutions combining high-end products and added-value services.

By Anh Duc

Thức Mai salmon farm in Ngũ Chỉ Sơn Commune of Sa Pa Town owned by Phạm Thị Mai supplies fingerlings and fish bran to and buys fish from over 30 households in the area. VNA/VNS Photo

LÀO CAI ­— Many farms in the northern mountainous province of Lào Cai have implemented measures to enhance the production and trade of cold-water fish.

The cold-water fish producers realised that to avoid risks, attaching traceability stamps and promoting co-operation between production and processing are effective solutions to raise the economic value of cold-water fish products and deal with cheap imported products.

Currently, the Lào Cai Cold Water Fish Association manages 55 cold water aquaculture facilities with a volume of about 17,000 cu.m of water, mainly in Sa Pa, Bát Xát and Văn Bàn districts, to supply to the market over 335 tonnes of fish annually.

Investing in cold water fish farming not only costs billions of đồng but also requires strict factors regarding natural water sources, imported breeds and high prices of fish feed.

Thus, to minimise risks, this industry must have close links from production, consumption to processing so as to increase incomes for cold water fish farmers.

The COVID-19 pandemic was a wake-up call to help cold-water fish farmers in Sa Pa District become more aware of professional fish farming, linkages, and more professional investment.

As there was little space to expand the fish breeding areas, many large-scale farms or co-operatives in Sa Pa have linked with individual farmers to jointly develop the cold-water fish industry.

Thức Mai salmon farm in Ngũ Chỉ Sơn Commune of Sa Pa Town owned by Phạm Thị Mai supplies fingerlings and fish bran to and buys fish from over 30 households in the area.

In the past, cold water fish products at this facility were easily consumed, but since the outbreak of the pandemic and a surge of imported sturgeon, the farm has faced many difficulties, such as feed price hike, decreasing fish prices and reduction of consumption due to the drop in tourists to Sa Pa.

To solve this situation, intensive processing was the solution chosen by Thức Mai salmon farm as a new direction to diversify the product chain from the cold-water fish and has shown initial efficiency.

Now, every day, the farm processes and consumes about 1 tonne of commercial salmon and 50 processed products such as smoked salmon, salmon sausage, salmon paste rolls and dried shredded salmon.

The processed products are consumed throughout the country and have proven popular.

Since implementing the intensive processing of products, Mai was assured about the output for the product.

“In order to ensure the prestige of the product and have a long-term foothold in the market, I said the products must be tasty and clean,” said Nguyễn Thị Mai.

“I just bought fresh and safely-raised fish,” she said.

“Therefore, households associated with my farm must commit to strictly comply with fish farming techniques as per regulations,” the farm owner said.

Due to the characteristics of salmon, the big risk of farmers was not being able to sell the fish.

So, in the process of production and trading co-operation, each farmer had to comply with the breeding schedule at a different time, according to Mai.

Since then, the quantity of fish for sale was not too high, helping to guarantee the price and quality of fish, she said.

When the prices of salmon dropped to VNĐ140,000 (US$6) per kilo, households could share bran sources or find chances to consume products at big supermarkets.

Therefore, bringing the cold-water fish products into big supermarkets, penetrating business chains and developing markets in the long term were vital solutions, according to Mai.

Traceability stamping

To gradually affirm the brand for cold-water fish of Lào Cai, the Lào Cai Cold Water Fish Association has co-ordinated with Smartcheck Technology Joint Stock Company in Hà Nội to pilot the attachment of 15,000 traceability stamps for sturgeon and salmon at Sa Pa Cold Water Fisheries Research Centre, Ô Quý Hồ Cold Water Seafood Processing Co-operative, and Thức Mai Salmon Farm.

After affixing the traceability stamp, the production facilities would be able to manage their product lines, protect the brands, prove the origins as well as ensure transparency of all necessary information.

Not only a pioneer in intensive processing, Thức Mai Salmon Farm is also the first establishment in Lào Cai to apply traceability stamps to more than 5,000 sturgeons.

“The sturgeons imported in large quantities into the Vietnamese market recently had a significant impact on the establishment’s consumption,” said Mai.

“The traceability stamping has helped the establishment’s salmon products be welcomed in many provinces across the country and act as a passport to penetrate major supermarkets,” said Mai.

“In fact, consumers could not distinguish between domestically-raised sturgeon and imported and smuggled ones. Therefore, stamping would solve the issue and gradually build a brand for cold-water fish of Sa Pa,” she added.

Chairman of the Lào Cai Cold Water Fish Association, Phạm Bá Uyên said that consumers now just need to use smartphones to scan the QR code to trace the origins and the fish raising process.

The traceability stamp would be deployed by many cold water fish farming facilities in Lào Cai to protect the brands and make give consumers confidence, said Uyên.

The solutions of stamping traceability and promoting the linkages in the production and processing of cold-water fish in recent years were in line with the general spirit of the project on developing a network of processing agricultural and forest products of Lao Cai Province in the 2021 – 2025 period.

The project aims to improve management capacity, production efficiency, improve product competitiveness and orient the consumption market and products in the agro-forestry product processing sector of the province.

The project sets out a goal of 100 per cent of products of the chain of safe agricultural, forestry and fishery production, processing and consumption in the province using QR codes on the Agricultural Traceability Information Transparency System managed by the Lào Cai Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

And 80 per cent of establishments of preliminary and intensive processing vegetables, fruit, meat, eggs and aquaculture products must use modern machinery and equipment, and apply advanced technologies in preserving products.

To achieve the above objectives, Lào Cai has encouraged investment in processing agricultural products, restructuring of products, promoting the application of science and technology to the processing and preservation of agricultural products so as to improve product quality, ensure food safety and promote market expansion.

Additionally, the local authority would continue to complete and renew mechanisms and policies to create a favourable environment for all economic sectors to participate in the development of agricultural and forestry product processing industries, especially policies relating to land, credit and markets, promote administrative reform and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of state management in the area. – VNS

Cold storage of Hanh Nguyen Logistics Center is expected to meet the fruit processing demand in the Mekong Delta. (Photo: SGGP)

By Cao Phong – Translated by Thuy Doan

Growing vegetables under the VietGAP standards in Cu Chi District in HCM City. (Photo: SGGP)

The pandemic remains complicated in the world, so it is necessary to take fiscal measures and policy mechanisms to promote the development of the agri-food sector. This is the result of the report “The economic impact of the agri-food sector in Southeast Asia” conducted by Oxford Economics under commission by Food Industry ASIA (FIA).

Lots of growth opportunities

Improving processing capacity and added value for agricultural products

Dr. Tran Hoang Ngan, Director of Ho Chi Minh City Institute for Development Studies: Vietnam’s agriculture has a lot of potentials, if we attract large investors to invest in agriculture, we will solve the problem of modernization, increase added value for agricultural products, and help the productivity of the whole country to be better. It is estimated that the current productivity in agriculture is only equal to 38 percent of the general labor productivity of the whole economy and accounts for about 40 percent of the total workforce of the country. Therefore, it is necessary to solve the traffic problem to be able to lead to agricultural development. The developed agriculture both provides Vietnamese brand export agricultural products and implemented well the strategy of food security and inflation control.

SGGP