Investment Attraction Policies in agriculture must untie 'the knot' in land and credits

On the afternoon of September 5 in Ha Noi, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural development held a “Consultation Workshop on the mechanism and policies to attract investment and encourage the development of enterprises in agriculture” with the aim of evaluation for amendment of the Decree No. 210 on policies to encourage enterprises to invest in agriculture and rural areas. Participants of the workshop also included economic experts, large enterprises operating in the field of agriculture.

After nearly 4 years implementing the Decree No.210 on Policies to encourage enterprises to invest in agriculture and rural areas, the outcome is still limited. Compared with other sectors of the economy, the number of enterprises investing in agriculture until September 2016 were just over 4400 enterprises, accounting for nearly 1% of the total number of enterprises, mainly medium and small enterprises, about 75% of businesses are using obsolete machinery technology. Besides, the decree has not received the participation of all economic sectors; some of the regulations and criteria are too high making it difficult for enterprises to access the incentive policies. In addition, funding from the State budget for policy implementation is still limited and in slow progress.

Commenting on the Draft Decree amending and supplementing the Decree No.210 which is being developed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural development on the mechanism and policies to attract investment in agriculture, many delegates said that in addition to reviewing and adjusting the land policy, sufficient credit capital for implementing the policies must be assured.

In the same opinion, Mr. Nguyen Khac Hai, CEO of PAN Group proposed to focus on non-monetary incentive policies, besides tax policies. These preferential policies would encourage businesses to focus on more effective projects, using joint ventures linking several resourses to produce quality, high-value products. Creating an equal and transparent business environment, eliminating the “ask –give” mechanism are very necessary in the current complex and time-consuming administrative procedures.

Concluding the workshop, H.E Nguyen Xuan Cuong, Minister of Agriculture and Rural development highly appreciated the investment efforts of enterprises in agriculture in recent years. The Ministry through its subordinate departments would collect all the comments after the workshop to finalize the content of the draft decree before submitting it to the Government for approval.

Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong also emphasized the role of enterprises as a leading actor in linking value chains in agriculture sector in Viet Nam. This Decree is expected to solve the difficulties by providing the mechanism to remove the existing bottlenecks and providing access to credit mechanism and land policy. These would include the accumulation of land and providing property on land. The proposed decree should also create favorable conditions for enterprises to operate, especially in administrative procedures, not causing difficulties for enterprises, further decentralized and more transparent to prevent policy exploitation.

Source: The Office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural development.