Momentum building for agricultural enterprises

Numerous new ventures in agriculture, and the attention of domestic and foreign investors, may enable the sector to fully exploit Vietnam’s specific advantages.

Agriculture, forestry, and fisheries reported a 10 per cent increase in the number of newly established businesses in Q1, according to the General Statistics Office.

In the first four months of this year, 507 businesses were newly established in the agro-forestry-fishery sector, up 1.2 per cent on-year.

At the end of March, Phu Yen Department of Agriculture and Rural Development revealed that the provincial agricultural sector has been attracting numerous businesses investing in cultivation, livestock, forestry, clean water, and rural environmental sanitation. Among them, three biggest agricultural projects with a total investment of about $50 million have been approved.

Two of them are husbandry projects. The high-tech livestock project of Quang Minh Livestock Technology Development and Investment Company in Tay Hoa district will build technical infrastructure for a sow farm using modern, closed technology, ensuring environmental hygiene standards to prevent epidemics and meeting VietGAP livestock standards. The $33-million project will breed about 15,000 sows to annually supply about 300,000-350,000 piglets to the market.

The second is the pig farm project of Son Ha Livestock Company in Son Hoa district, deployed across 17 hectares with a scale of 40,000 pigs per year and total investment of about $4.5 million.

Trung An High-Tech Farming JSC proposed a project on linking high-quality rice production, purchasing, processing and exporting rice in the central province of Phu Yen. The $24-million project will build a cluster of export rice processing factories in association with the development of high-quality organic rice raw material areas to improve the quality of the rice value chain for domestic consumption and export processing, building a strong rice brand.

Nguyen Hoang Phuc, deputy director of Phu Yen Department of Planning and Investment, said, “At present, investors are implementing relevant procedures to start investment and construction. In the time coming, agricultural enterprises are considered the driving force of agricultural value chains and creating spillover effects for socioeconomic development.”

“The provincial government will support businesses to have longterm access to land, upgrade rural infrastructure, and build a stronger incentive mechanism for investors to participate in the construction and business of agricultural and rural infrastructure in various forms, especially in public-private partnerships,” Phuc said.

In addition to local investors, agricultural funding in the central and southern regions are also being looked at by foreign investors from the United States, the EU, and Asian countries. In March and April, some delegations of US investors from Washington State and the Dutch Association of Agricultural Business Cooperation in Vietnam visited and discussed prospects with the Ho Chi Minh City High-tech Agricultural Park’s (HAP) Management Board.

In March, hundreds of major foreign enterprises, particularly from the EU, also sought opportunities and investment policies in the agriculture sector in the southern province of Binh Phuoc.

Previously, in January, Finc BioTech from Singapore asked to rent 10ha of land area in the HAP to develop a mushroom farming project with investment of $33 million.

“The mushroom factory will follow the HACCP quality management system and apply high-tech agricultural production criteria,” a representative of Finc Bio-Tech said.

Phase 1 is expected to be accomplished within 12 months after being approved.

“In addition to mushrooms, we will invest in a storage centre and a research and development centre for edible mushroom varieties,” he said.

Another foreign-invested enterprise (FIE), HSC from Japan, in cooperation with Smart Eco Farm JSC, proposed renting three hectares of land in the HAP to build a fruit processing factory with the most advanced Japanese technology. It is expected that 20-30 per cent of all products will be consumed in the country, while the remainder will be exported to Japan and international markets.

In the first quarter of 2024, the agricultural sector achieved impressive achievements, with a trade surplus reaching $3.36 billion, an increase of 96.5 per cent on year. Of which, the total export turnover hit $13.53 billion, up 21.8 per cent. Items reporting an export value of more than $1 billion are wood, vegetables, rice, and coffee.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) set an ambitious target that registered foreign direct investment in the agricultural sector will reach $25 billion by 2030, from a cumulative figure of only $3.9 billion now.

Nguyen Duy Hoan, senior lecturer at Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry, said, “A significant benefit is that FIEs bring new and advanced technologies into Vietnam. In addition to enabling domestic businesses to access new technologies, it also contributes to product diversification, especially deepening processed products, increase exports, and improve product value,” Hoan said.

Nguyen Anh Phong, a representative from the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agricultural and Rural Development under the MARD, said that foreign funding into the sector still included some shortcomings.

“Compared to the industrial and service sectors, foreign investment in agriculture and forestry accounts for a very low and unstable proportion. Furthermore, the quality of foreign-led projects in agriculture is not high, and most are small-scale projects,” Phong said.n