HCM City (VNA) - The Vietnam Food Association (VFA) was urged to work with other units tocontinue shifting rice production towards higher output of high-quality riceand applying technological advances in production and processing to maximize thevalue of rice.
The call was made atthe association’s eighth congress in Ho Chi Minh City on March 6 during whichparticipants elected Nguyen Ngoc Nam, Acting Director General of Vinafood 2, asVFA President in the 2018-2023 tenure, to replace Huynh The Nang, who retired.
In the new tenure,the association has set to increase its membership in order to coordinateactions to counter price squeeze and dumping and unhealthy competition.
VFA will work closely with other State agencies and authorities of localities toaccelerate productive production and business.
Tran Thanh Nam,Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development asked the association towork with the ministry’s units and localities in screening the planning of ricegrowing areas to adjust production scale and output to fit the demand for localconsumption and export.
The association should boost production connectivity and develop cooperativesso as to proactively prepare supplies of quality rice for export to specificmarkets, he said.
Duong Phuong Thao,deputy head of the Import-Export Department of the Ministry of Industry and Tradereminded VFA members to take into account changes in import-export policies beingimplemented by major markets.
Vietnam may export 6.5 million tonnes of rice in 2018, with high-quality rice accountingfor a large proportion of total rice export volume and normal rice making upless than 20 percent.
The country sold 861,000 tonnes of rice abroad in the first two months of thisyear, earning 419 million USD, up 17 percent in volume and 34 percent in valuecompared with the same period last year.
The Philippines wasthe biggest importer of Vietnamese rice, accounting for 26.9 percent of themarket share. It was followed by China, with 23.5 percent.
In 2017, Vietnam earned2.6 billion USD from the shipment of 5.8 million tonnes of rice abroad.-VNA