Attracting businesses to invest in sustainable agriculture (Last article)

Final article: Need for "clearing" mechanisms and policies

To fundamentally solve the "problem" of attracting enterprises to invest in the agricultural sector, all levels and sectors need to coordinate, support, and create conditions to remove "bottlenecks", especially in terms of mechanisms and policies,... to create trust and peace of mind when investing, towards green, modern, and sustainable agriculture.

The whole country currently has only over 50,000 enterprises investing in agriculture (In photo: Workers of Tan An Agricultural Products and Food Export Processing Company Limited packing products)

Remove obstacles and difficulties

The participation of enterprises in agriculture plays an extremely important role. However, in the general "problem" of sustainable agricultural investment, it is necessary to remove obstacles and difficulties, clear "bottlenecks", and have more breakthrough mechanisms and policies in both policy and practical implementation.

According to businessman Vo Quan Huy (Huy Long An Company Limited - My Binh, Duc Hue District), building agricultural development policies in cultivation needs to pay attention to the interests of small-scale farmers. For aquaculture, the State needs to support those participating in this field so that they can make a living from their profession, produce good products, and contribute to the sustainable development of the agricultural sector.

Businesswoman Truong Thi Le Khanh (Vinh Hoan Seafood Joint Stock Company) said that to build a green and sustainable agriculture, it is necessary to focus on policies to attract investment from enterprises with processing technology capacity and market development capacity; invest in infrastructure to develop rural economy and concentrated raw material areas. Regarding training, include educational programs on building a green and sustainable agriculture; train teams participating in the agricultural sector, have programs to encourage highly qualified labor forces to enter agriculture; train on the application of scientific and technological advances to each farming household; and integrate training.

Promote green agriculture development programs through the application of cultivation and processing technology to optimize productivity and quality, and enhance product value. Strengthen propaganda to each small and retail production household about green agriculture, propagate and connect with consumers about green agricultural products; at the same time, select investors with a sustainable development perspective and the capacity to implement projects as committed.

General Director of San Ha Company Limited - Pham Thi Ngoc Ha proposed that in order to create conditions for stronger development of cultivation, livestock, processing, post-harvest preservation of agricultural products, etc., the authorities need to help enterprises quickly carry out all procedures along with simplifying administrative procedures. Breeds play a very important role in production, including livestock breeds; however, to help enterprises shorten the time, the ministries and branches managing agriculture need to go one step ahead to guide enterprises so that they do not waste time testing in practice before making a choice.

The government should help genuine enterprises in introducing and promoting to consumers, which will be much more effective than enterprises advertising themselves. Enterprises recommend that the Government pay attention to creating mechanisms to promote enterprises to invest in agriculture, land prices, and taxes. Banks sympathize with the difficulties and truly accompany agricultural enterprises; have special preferential policies for green agriculture because currently interest rates are quite high compared to profits, so enterprises cannot borrow capital to invest in agriculture. State management agencies continue to pay more attention to supporting and accompanying enterprises for economic development.

According to the Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ho Chi Minh City - Dinh Minh Hiep, the Socio-Economic Development Cooperation Program between Ho Chi Minh City and the provinces and cities of the Mekong Delta region until 2025 is opening up opportunities to attract projects from Ho Chi Minh City investors in many fields such as investment, investment promotion and trade, high-tech agriculture, culture - tourism, health, education, etc. Thereby, promoting the potential and advantages of the parties, contributing to promoting the socio-economic development between Ho Chi Minh City and the provinces and cities of the Mekong Delta region in general and promoting investment cooperation and consumption of agricultural products in particular.

“Leaders of provinces and cities in the Mekong Delta need to focus on building an information exchange mechanism, updating the progress of cooperation programs, researching and building a website to update regional cooperation content and bilateral cooperation content with each locality to jointly promote investment and development, establishing a two-way information exchange system on the agricultural sector through multimedia (exchange between farmers, enterprises and management agencies), market information, providing forecasts on supply and demand and expanding market scale.

Mechanism to promote investment cooperation to support trade promotion, connect agricultural product consumption, promote supply-demand connection activities, expand local agricultural product consumption markets in domestic and international markets, strongly develop e-commerce and apply traceability in agricultural product consumption business. Promote mechanisms to attract investors in production, preliminary processing, processing of agricultural products and agricultural hubs associated with specialized areas, strengthen quality control, traceability of products at logistics centers, agricultural wholesale markets in Ho Chi Minh City.

There should be a mechanism to promote trade promotion cooperation to expand the market associated with the development of a regional agricultural logistics center system; connecting the regional agricultural logistics center located in Ho Chi Minh City with the logistics center system in production areas, regional agricultural logistics centers in provinces and cities in the Mekong Delta and export agricultural logistics centers" - Mr. Dinh Minh Hiep suggested.

There needs to be more mechanisms and policies to pave the way.

According to Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee - Nguyen Van Ut, Long An is strengthening the implementation of policies on encouraging the development of cooperation and association in the consumption of agricultural products; encouraging enterprises to invest in agriculture and rural areas continues to be implemented, which is a great opportunity to call on enterprises to participate more and more in agricultural production and business in the direction of developing cooperation and association in production associated with processing and consumption of agricultural products.

At the same time, based on the industrial development orientation of the Mekong Delta, the Government's strategy for agricultural mechanization and agricultural, forestry and fishery processing development to 2030, the province continues to research and develop an orientation for the development of the agricultural processing industry in accordance with the province's potential and strengths to integrate into the Provincial Planning; identify driving projects to attract investment resources from domestic and foreign enterprises.

Businesses need to be supported with resources, reduce procedures, barriers,... to invest in agriculture.

According to the Standing Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Ben Tre Province - Nguyen Truc Son, Ben Tre Province's main advantage is the aquaculture and coconut economy. The province has the largest coconut growing area in the country with over 70,000 hectares; shrimp and fish, clams are also strengths and there are many large enterprises participating in processing activities. However, the province has a problem of raising a lot of shrimp but does not have a processing factory, only supplying raw materials to provinces with shrimp processing factories. Currently, the province has a project of 4,000 hectares of high-tech shrimp farming and hopes to call on enterprises to invest in processing factories locally. Ben Tre is ready to support, care for and create conditions for enterprises to develop and expand further in business. In addition, the province recommends that in the upcoming Land Law (amended), there should be an incentive mechanism for farmers to participate in linkages with enterprises on land.

Deputy Director of the Department of Agricultural Economics (Ministry of Planning and Investment) - Doan Dat informed: Regarding the draft Decree (ND) replacing Decree No. 57 to implement the tasks assigned by the Government, the Ministry of Planning and Investment actively coordinated with ministries, branches, localities and the business community to complete the draft replacement Decree. The draft has been approved by Government members since 2022, but to suit the new situation, the Ministry of Planning and Investment is drafting and adding some more contents.

The first is to overcome difficulties and inadequacies in the implementation of Decree No. 57. Inheriting the post-investment support mechanism and policies of Decree No. 57, the processes and procedures in the draft will be clear, transparent, and feasible for businesses to easily access and for the State to conveniently implement policies to support businesses.

Second, promptly respond to newly arising issues and factors that have a major impact on production and business of enterprises investing in agriculture and rural areas, such as promptly receiving investment opportunities from free trade agreements; in line with the changing trends of domestic and international agricultural markets towards green, safe and effective.

Third, ensure compliance with practice and synchronization with laws, especially newly promulgated laws: Law on Public Investment 2019, Law on Investment 2020, Law on Enterprises 2020. At the same time, business support policies need to be simple, easy to implement and flexible to ensure feasibility and implementation. Priority should be given to supporting projects applying high technology, digital transformation, circular economy; green, clean, environmentally friendly projects.

In the process of attracting investment in agriculture, it is necessary to clear up "bottlenecks", institutions, reform administrative procedures, remove barriers and support resources for enterprises to attract, encourage and promote enterprises to invest in agriculture and rural areas in an effective, safe and sustainable manner, in line with the orientations of the Party and State./.

Thanh My

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