Agriculture businesses should embrace connection in order to participate in global value chains, heard a forum held in Hanoi on October 8.

Dragon fruits for exports 

Nguyen Quoc Toan, director of the agricultural products processing and development department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said as of September 2019, the country counted 1,478 value chains of agricultural products across 63 cities and provinces nationwide.

There are 14,810 agricultural cooperatives and over 7,000 agro-forestry-fishery processing facilities, he said, adding that more than 25,500 households have joined production chains with businesses certified with Vietnamese Good Agricultural Practices (VietGAP) while over 619,000 households engaged in large-scale field production.

Vietnam is exporting farm produce to 185 countries and territories, ranking second in the Southeast Asian region and 15th in the world. The country has also joined and signed 16 new-generation free trade agreements (FTAs), thus creating more opportunities for the export of agricultural products, Toan said.

In the first nine months of 2019, Vietnam exported 30.2 billion USD worth of farm produce, a year-on-year rise of 2.7 percent, he added.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Ha Cong Tuan said the number of agriculture businesses in Vietnam has increased rapidly in the past three years.

About 500 enterprises are involved in agricultural value chains from production, harvesting, and processing to trading, he added.