Vietnam wishes to promote sound and effective cooperation with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to produce quality rice varieties and work out cultivation processes, especially in the context of climate change and rising sea level.

The statement was stressed by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on February 25 when he received Director of IRRI Robert S. Zeigler, who is paying a working visit to Vietnam .

At the reception, Dung spoke highly of the IRRI’s effective support to Vietnam in the past years with up to 80 percent of high-yield rice varieties in the Mekong Delta.

For his part, Zeigler expressed his pleasure at Vietnam ’s achievements in agricultural development, and praised Vietnam ’s strategic and practical agricultural policies.-VNA