Strengthening cooperation mechanism, and promoting effectiveness of PPP in agriculture

On the morning of August 16^th 2018, in Hanoi, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development hold a PSAV semi-annual general meeting. In the afternoon of the same day, PSAV in collaboration with Grow Asia held a workshop on ‘Sharing experience in agricultural PPP working groups’ in order to improve the operation performance, operation mechanisms, structure and roles of agricultural PPP working groups.

Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Minister Le Quoc Doanh affirmed that Vietnam always attached great importance to enterprises in guiding and promoting the market development, and especially building up a high-value and sustainable value chain. The set up of PPP working groups brought together enterprises from multinational corporations and localities for piloting to create policy and institutional breakthroughs in order to attract private investment in agricultural restructure and sustainable agricultural and rural development. Deputy Minister highly appreciated achievements of agricultural PPP working groups with various initiatives and innovations in operation and open approach. In 2018, Prime Minister assigned the agriculture sector to achieve the imports-exports of 40 billion USD, and higher turnovers in subsequent years, which should be relied on the involvement of enterprises to spread good models to communities and farmers, as well as better integrate into the global agricultural value chains.

Currently, 7 PPP groups in the commodity group, including: coffee, tea, spices and pepper, fruit and vegetable, fisheries and rice, have been operating well. The number of linked farmer households significantly rises from 43,372 in 2016 to 216,951 in 2018. The agrochemicals group has been associated with commodity groups to deal with issues related to agrochemicals in order to ensure product quality, protect environment, and ensure environmental friendliness. The agricultural finance group has paused their operation since 2016. The PPP livestock group is in the process of being established.

The PSAV Secretariat has implemented various activities to connect and expand connection with agents of the group, and strengthen the communication on agricultural – rural development policies, and business-incentive policies, etc. in order to further improve the efficiency of group activities.

However, several working groups have been awkward, formalist, and unclear on activities and especially cooperative mechanisms. In order to achieve better results, Deputy Minister suggested the PSAV Secretariat closely work with groups to improve their operation frequently, review the collaborative approaches and mechanisms to expand their memberships with effective enterprises. In the partnership, Deputy Minister proposed promote the roles of the public sectors, research institutions of the Ministry as co-chairs of working groups and have local representatives create the best environment for linking the development of commodity value chains with enterprises’ supply chains. The Ministry has been also developing the criteria, mechanisms and policies to promote the replication of good practices of commodity PPP working groups, which required a mechanism of information sharing to the business community to expand their cooperation and partnership.

PSAV mid year meeting 2018 document