Standard Chartered Bank Vietnam has signed a 70 million USD trade-finance facility agreement to provide An Giang Plant Protection Joint Stock Company with short- to medium-term working capital.

The agreement, inked on January 17, will allow the company to develop its large-scale paddy field model in the Mekong Delta.

The model, which is an integrated rice production chain, has been deployed for more than three years.

Under the model, the company purchases rice paddy from farmers who use its products, and then appoints agricultural engineers to provide technical assistance to those farmers.

This helps raise the overall quality of the product, offering better returns for improved financial security as well as eliminating value leakage through intermediaries.

"Standard Chartered's tailor-made products for agriculture allow us to further the success of the large paddy field model," said Huynh Van Thon, the plant protection company's chairman.

CEO Nirukt Sapru of SCB Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, said: "We are proud to be the first foreign bank to support the development of the large paddy model in Vietnam through this pioneer cooperation. We are encouraged by the way An Giang company is supporting the development of the rice industry from which millions of Vietnamese rice growers will benefit."-VNA