Hanoi will assist Mozambican localities in developing agriculture, Deputy Chairman of the Hanoi municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Van Suu said to Mozambique’s Minister of Agriculture Jose Pacheco in Hanoi on March 11.

Pacheco said Mozambique is paying special attention to food cultivation for export, especially wet rice. At present, Hanoi is implementing the trilateral Vietnam–Japan–Mozambique wet rice growing cooperation project in Nante, Zamberia province, and the second stage of the bilateral project in Macia, Gaiza province for the 2013–2014 period.

This year, Hanoi will earmark 10 billion VND (500,000 USD) for technical assistance to Mozambique. In the past, the capital city experimented with perennial and annual rice varieties, which yielded higher output, in model farms in the African country.

The model farms will be expanded and local farmers will receive guidance to work on 30 hectares of land. Output is estimated at 4 tonnes per hectare, 2.5 times current production.

As part of the trilateral project, Vietnam and Japan have trained hundreds of Mozambican agriculture officials and farmers, and held seminars to share its experience in wet rice farming.

In the first quarter of this year, Vietnamese experts helped localities build irrigation dykes and offered training in leveling paddy fields and sowing rice.-VNA