Phu Cu early ripening hybrid lychee growing area in Tam Da Commune, Phu Cu District, Hung Yen Province, produces lychees recognised as OCOP products.

Dong Tao Commune, Khoai Chau District, Hung Yen Province is home to Dong Tao chicken, a precious chicken breed with outstanding characteristics, including big, round legs, a tall body and weight from 4.5 to 6 kg, with firm and delicious meat. To exploit the economic efficiency of this chicken breed, Hung Yen Province has supported Dong Tao Chicken Breeding and Trading Cooperative, to build a collective brand for Dong Tao chicken, helping their products meet standards and be recognised as OCOP. Mr. Le Tuan Cuong, a Dong Tao Chicken Breeding and Trading Cooperative member, shared that since Dong Tao chicken products were recognised as OCOP products, consumption has become favourable. With a flock of more than 400 Dong Tao chickens, every year his family supplies the market with 3,000 to 4,000 chicken breeds and tonnes of Dong Tao chicken meat, earning a profit of about 150 million VND.

According to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Hung Yen Province, in 2023, the OCOP Council of Hung Yen Province organised an evaluation. It ranked 53 products of 31 subjects, of which 49 products achieved 3 stars and 4 products achieved 4 stars. This brings the total number of OCOP products in Hung Yen province to 252 products, of which 206 products achieved 3 stars and 46 products achieved 4 stars. The OCOP programme has promoted localities' potential products and strengths, to increase the value and brand of OCOP products. Many OCOP products have exploited and promoted the advantages of production conditions, raw material areas and traditional local culture, such as Nghia Trai traditional medicinal craft villages, Tan Quang Commune, Van Lam District; Hoa Phong fine arts carpentry village, Hoa Phong Commune, My Hao Town; Chi Tan turmeric production and processing village, Chi Tan Commune, Khoai Chau District; Xuan Quan flower and ornamental plant craft village, Van Giang District, Hung Yen longan; Phu Cu early-ripening hybrid lychee; Hung Yen longan flower honey; Hung Yen egg lychee; Hung Yen dried longan; Hung Yen Orange; Hung Yen Lotus.

Dong Tao chicken products of Dong Tao Chicken Breeding and Trading Cooperative are recognised as OCOP products.

Head of the Rural Development Department of Hung Yen Province Le Van Thang, said the effectiveness that the OCOP Programme has brought to people and production entities is great, contributing to promoting agricultural production following VietGap standards and organic direction, promoting production links associated with product consumption, contributing to consolidating and improving production and business activities of producers. 195 production links related to the OCOP Program have been formed in the province and are operating effectively. It also helped motivate production entities to promote production development, expand the scale, increase members, create jobs for rural workers, increase income, improve living standards, and contribute to implementing socio-economic development tasks in rural areas, ensuring the ecological environment and sustainable development. This promotes in-depth rural economic development, continuing to restructure the agricultural sector, implementing the construction of new advanced rural areas and modelling new rural areas in the province during the 2021-2025 period, both effectively and sustainably.

To continue to improve the effectiveness of the OCOP programme, in 2024 Hung Yen Province will implement several solutions, such as promoting communication work and in-depth training to enhance the capacity of management and executive staff, to implement the OCOP Programme at district and communal levels and production entities participating in the OCOP Programme.

The province will also focus on conducting training and coaching to improve management and marketing capacity for managers and executives of production entities; enhancing quality, and food safety, building stable raw material areas, ensuring standards; fostering skills in packaging design, labelling and product design, and building product stories; intellectual property knowledge, traceability along the value chain.

Developing OCOP products will be associated with building raw material areas, following the direction of VietGap production, organic, ecological agriculture, ensuring food safety, traceability and environmental protection, and sustainable development. New product development will be formed based on applying science and technology, based on local advantages, with outstanding and unique quality. Priority will also be given to handicraft products and traditional trades created by artisans and the community. Products will be processed deeply from speciality products, local ingredients and local community knowledge, using products that contribute to preserving traditional culture.

Manufacturing will be implemented according to advanced quality management processes, forming unique OCOP products, with quality and food safety, being environmentally friendly, meeting market requirements; building models for developing raw material areas associated with OCOP products along the value chain; building a pilot model and developing green OCOP products, in the direction of a circular economy related to export markets, based on the advantages of natural and socio-economic conditions of each region.

More attention will be paid to enhancing capacity building for OCOP subjects in terms of community capacity and the spirit of cooperation; innovative production organisation forms and management skills; product innovation and creativity; quality management, food safety; skills in packaging design, labelling and product design; intellectual property, traceability along the value chain, increasing the use and exploitation of community brands of products from rural areas; improving the operational efficiency of cooperatives and small and medium-sized enterprises, associated with the OCOP product value chain.

Potential products and local strengths will be reviewed and selected, focusing on guiding and supporting producers to prepare documents to participate in the OCOP Programme and organise evaluation, ranking and recognition of OCOP products, according to prescribed procedures.

Trade promotion activities will be held to connect supply and demand for OCOP products through annual fairs, exhibitions, and events honouring, promoting, and introducing unique OCOP products, associated with provincial, regional and national culture. Promote consumption of OCOP products related to key tourism markets, actively participating in trade promotion activities, introduce and consume products, seek distributors, and expand markets for OCOP products; continue to support the construction of OCOP product introduction and sales points in the province, according to Plan No. 135/KH-UBND dated August 30, 2023, of the Provincial People’s Committee.

The application of information technology and digital transformation in implementing the OCOP Programme will be accelerated, with a step-by-step digitising of receiving documents, scoring and classifying products; digitising products and building a traceability system along the OCOP value chain. Forming a national database system on the OCOP Programme, improving quality and efficiency in management, supervision, and promotion; promoting the connection between product supply and demand; striving to have over 90% of OCOP products recognised with 3 stars or more posted on e-commerce platforms such as postmart.vn, voso.vn, Shopee.vn, Zalo, Facebook and Google ads, or commercial applications electronics.