Yen Bai develops agro-forestry-fishery product processing

Yen Bai (VNA) – The northern mountainous province of Yen Bai aims to develop comprehensive raw material and hi-tech processing facilities to boost the development of its agro-forestry-fishery sector.

According to the province’s industrial development plan to 2020, with a vision to 2025, the province will focus on the processing industry, developing trademarks and expanding markets for local products.

Yen Bai is blessed with material resources for wood processing, with 430,000 hectares of forests, including nearly 300,000 hectares of production forests, producing more than 450,000 cubic metres of wood and over 25 million bamboo trees. Between 14,000 – 15,000 hectares of new forest are planted every year.

Currently, there are 104 wood processing facilities, with a combined annual capacity exceeding 176,000 cubic metres, and hundreds of other wood peeling and slicing facilities, producing over 200,000 cubic metres per year. However, most of them use low-tech production lines, resulting in low quality products.

To improve this situation, the province wants investment in producing high-quality furniture for export, aiming to increase an annual capacity to 300,000 products.

The wood processing sector aims to earn 850 billion VND (37.4 million USD) by 2020, and double this by 2025.

The province has also zoned off areas for industrial tree plantation to produce raw material for wood processing.

The province has more than 11,000 hectares of tea trees, mainly in Van Chan, Tran Yen, and Yen Binh district, producing 85,000 tonnes of tea per year. It also has over 40,000 hectares of cinnamon trees, producing over 7,400 tonnes of dry cinnamon bark. Its 16,000 hectares of cassava also produce more than 300,000 tonnes of cassava per year.

Van Yen district has huge potential for agri-forestry processing. The district has 30 firms, cooperatives and over 70 households involving in processing cinnamon; six firms and cooperatives, and over 1,000 households processing cassava; and 15 firms, cooperatives, and 70 private facilities processing timber.

The district aims to earn 900 billion VND (39.6 million USD) from industrial production by 2020.

According to the provincial Department of Industry and Trade, there are 99 tea-processing facilities with a combined daily capacity of 1,200 tonnes of fresh tea leaves, producing over 25,000 tonnes of dry tea per year.

The four local cassava processing factories also produce 66,000 tonnes of flour per year.

The province has 13 cinnamon oil extracting factories with a total annual capacity of 955 tonnes, and 120 family facilities.

Yen Bai aims to develop its local facilities while calling for investment in hi-tech processing factories to use its huge supplies of raw material and increase the quality of its products.

The province also wants investment in processing camellia fruits and bamboo shoots, in an effort to raise the economic value of these products to 50 billion VND (2.2 million USD) by 2020 and 200 billion VND (8.8 million USD) by 2025.

Several cattle meat processing facilities will be built with a combined capacity exceeding 3,000 tonnes per year.-VNA