At the opening ceremony, VWU Vice Chairwoman Do Thi Thu Thao said over the past years, the VWU has been well aware of the role and responsibility of women for economic development in rural areas via internal capacity development and increased value.

Via the women start-up support scheme, the VWU encouraged women to start their own businesses with OCOP products. It has helped establish 6,000 cooperative groups and 500 cooperatives with OCOP products meeting 3-4 starred standards.

Each year, the VWU offers vocational training to 6,000 women, improves capacity for 6,000 managers and members of collective economic models, and helps women access unsecured lending worth over VND22.5 trillion from the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, more than VND82 trillion from the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies and over VND1 trillion from micro-finance funds and programmes.

The VWU Vice Chairwoman highlighted a need to create differences for OCOP products, boost connectivity with retailers and supermarkets to bring products to consumers at the lowest cost.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Tran Thanh Nam said during over two years of implementation, the OCOP programme has been effectively carried out in localities nationwide with active participation of women.

Nam affirmed that the MARD will always partner with the VWU in improving the capacity of women in economic development and the OCOP programme in particular, contributing to sustainably building new-style rural areas.

Participants shared opportunities and measures to promote women’s role in the OCOP programme, mechanisms and policies to create favourable conditions for women to develop OCOP products in the agriculture processing industry.