Many businesses have been very successful in their agricultural investment, this has led to a big shift in investment direction, the Vietnam Economic News reported.

Many high-tech flower and ornamental plant production models in Hanoi, Da Lat and Ho Chi Minh City have brought farmers incomes from 600 million VND to 1 billion VND per ha per year.

Moving to agriculture and forestry sectors has helped many enterprises in difficult times. For example, the Tan Tao Group has set up a company specialising in fragrant rice research, production and marketing. At present, rice brands of the group like Nang Yen, Nang Dao and Nang Nga have been sold in large quantities at supermarkets.

Tan Tao group targets to grow 50,000ha meeting GlobalGAP standards by the end of 2015 to supply for domestic market first then will export clean rice brands later.

Dong Nai province is already well known for strong investment in industrial sector but investment growth in agriculture stood at just 2-3 percent a year. However, this growth rate has increased to about 16 percent a year. In the first half of this year, about 70 enterprises have been involved in agriculture production and business including many foreign enterprises like Japfa Company Limited and Emivest Vietnam Co, Ltd.

Although the Dong Nai Biological Technology Centre has not been fully built, five enterprises have asked to invest in seed production here. Despite the lack of land for high-tech agriculture development at the centre, many enterprises still wants to register for investment. The remaining land fund will be used to attract processing enterprises to increase the value of agricultural products.

Chairman of the Singapore Business Group in Ho Chi Minh City Norman Lim said for a long time Singaporean enterprises have invested in the production of agricultural products in Indonesia and Malaysia . Now, they are coming to Can Tho and Vinh Long provinces to conduct surveys for food production.

Israel also invested 1 million USD in the Dairy Demonstration and Experiment Farm in Ho Chi Minh City . Vietnam and Israel are also discussing to set up a common research fund for the high-tech agriculture development in Vietnam, through which Israel will send experts to work on specific projects, conduct trial production and then expand these production models.-VNA