Future Technologies-Todays Vision

In the afternoon of April 11^th in Ho Chi Minh City, The Netherlands Economic Trade Delegation, led by the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, collaborated with GrowAsia and VNU Asia - Pacific Exhibition Company to organize the Conference "Hortifuture: Future technology - Today's vision" aims to introduce the innovations that are being applied in the Netherlands, as well as the future development of Vietnam's farming industry, and find ways to ensure that Vietnamese small producers benefit from the conversion into high quality, high value-added products. The conference was attended by more than 100 guests and speakers from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Asia and Pacific Seed Association.

Speaking at the conference, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh said that agriculture was an important economic sector of Vietnam. In particular, horticulture contributed mainly 75% of agricultural output value. However, Vietnam's agriculture in general and horticulture in particular are vulnerable and risky. Currently, the agricultural sector is suffering from fierce competition with other sectors in terms of manpower and land. The production scale is still fragmented and small; the application of advanced technology is still limited, production has not yet achieved breakthroughs to increase added value ...

According to Deputy Minister Le Quoc Doanh, the Netherlands has a highly developed agriculture with a lot of experience in production innovation, agricultural business investment, and how to apply scientific and technological achievements to agricultural production, especially in horticulture. This is the foundation for Vietnam to study, understand and apply to production to promote the advantages of Vietnam's agriculture.

In the coming time, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Vietnam and the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality of the Netherlands will promote the development of technical projects in agriculture and encourage Netherlands enterprises to invests in Vietnam's agriculture in the form of FDI or Public-Private Partnership (PPP).

Mr. Willem Schoustra - Agricultural Counsellor at the Embassy of the Netherlands in Vietnam said: "Vietnam has great ambition and is becoming a strong player in the region and the world. The Netherlands is a strong partner with a high quality and innovative agriculture industry. I am looking forward to seeing how these new concepts and ideas can contribute to the agricultural development and strengthen the economic partnership between the Netherlands and Vietnam”.

Mrs. Somang Yang – Country Partnership Manager of GrowAsia said: “We look forward to hearing from industry stakeholders about their plans to support small producers to take advantage of opportunities for Vietnamese horticulture. This event will be an important milestone in establishing a drive towards a collective action towards a more sustainable and comprehensive future”.