A national forum on cooperative economy and cooperatives will be held in Hanoi in mid-October.

Illustrative image 

Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue has asked the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance to coordinate in organizing the event.

 The Deputy PM, who is also head of the Steering Committee for reforming and developing collective economy and cooperatives, stressed the need to draw lessons and experience in expanding cooperatives, and propose policies in the field.

 It is necessary to clarify the nature and role of the new-style cooperative model, as well as shed light into the development of cooperative economy and cooperatives as part of the restructuring of agricultural sector, the new-style rural area building, and the One Commune-One Product programme, he requested.

 The Vietnam Cooperative Alliance and the Ministry of Planning and Investment were assigned to design plan to organize the forum annually.

 The People’s Committees of centrally-run cities and provinces should engage in all activities of the forum and get prepared to answer questions related to issues related to cooperative economy and cooperatives.

 As of June this year, Vietnam had 14,502 agricultural cooperatives, 55 percent of which operated efficiently, much higher than 15 percent in 2015.

 Along with reducing production cost for member households, the cooperatives have helped increase their income by 14 percent per year.

 Meanwhile, localities have showed strong performance in handling ineffective cooperatives with 3,600 dissolved while 600 others are to be dissolved or reformed in the coming time.