Hanoi (VNA) - For the OCOP (one commune one product) programme to be effective, credit institutions need to continue creating favourable conditions for businesses and cooperatives to access credit sources at preferential interest rates, experts held.
After five years of implementation, the OCOP programme has been well deployed in all localities across the country. This programme is considered an important solution and task in implementing the National Target Programme on building new rural areas for the period from 2021-2025, Dao Duc Huan, head of the OCOP division at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Central New Rural Area Coordination Office, said at a seminar organised by the Banking Times on July 12 to develop the scope of OCOP products.
According to Huan, as of June, there had been 13,368 OCOP products across the country, of which more than 70% were recognised with 3 stars, about 26% with 4 stars and the remaining with 5 stars.
The OCOP programme has had a positive impact on rural economic development. It has awakened the potential of land, products and regional cultural values to form "multi-valued" OCOP products. They are formed from a combination of agricultural development and services, tourism and help to increase people's income and create momentum for agricultural and rural economic development, Huan affirmed.
He added that the OCOP programme has made social contributions. Up to now, nearly 35% of the participants to the programme have increased in labour size, of which 40% are run by women and 18% by ethnic minority people.
In particular, he said, the programme has created a change in terms of commerce, with online sales specialising in OCOP products on TikTok. This serves to spread promotions through most of the distribution system, creating a meeting place between manufacturers and consumers.
A representative of the Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank) said that it has offered various preferential credit packages, specific to each industry and field of agriculture and rural development, especially OCOP products, he said.
Chu Ngoc Quy, Deputy Head of the Individual Customers Division at Agribank, said that currently, customers who produce and trade OCOP products can borrow capital without collateral. Borrowers can loan up to 1 billion VND (for owners of cooperatives and farms) or up to 80% of business plans in high-tech agricultural production.
The bank has to date provided more than 500 billion VND in credit capital for customers producing and trading OCOP products. On January 26, the bank launched a preferential loan programme for individual customers producing and trading OCOP products with a scale of 2,000 billion VND. The programme has been carried out at 28 out of the bank’s 171 branches, with loan turnover hitting 101 billion VND.
At the seminar, experts and speakers said that despite positive results, there are many limitations in efforts to develop OCOP products. Many OCOP items have yet to find a solid foothold in the domestic market.
They pointed out reasons behind the situtation, such as limited particiation of some localities, and lack of practical support solutions to OCOP subjects.
Quy admitted that the bank encountered some difficulties in providing loans. For example, individual customers and business households that produce OCOP products are often small in scale. This means they are limited in applying new technologies, leading to low demand for loans.
Associate Professor, Dr. Mai Quang Vinh, Director of the Institute of Green Technology, said that OCOP products have not convinced a large number of partners and consumers because they lack origin certification.
He streed the need to overcome these limitations when the supplier is available and the technology is ready along with support policies and mechanisms. Producing an OCOP product with good quality, eye-catching design, and certificates of origin is a goal that needs to be clearly set, Vinh noted.
Pham Truong Giang - Director of the State Bank of Vietnam’s Phu Tho branch said to implement OCOP programmes more effectively, synchronous policies and mechanisms are needed. It is necessary to evaluate to make appropriate adjustments, while improving coordination between central and local management agencies./.
