The 16th meeting of the National Focal Point for the ASEAN Cocoa Club(ACC) on ASEAN Cooperation and Joint Approaches in Agriculture andForest Products Promotion Scheme opened in Ho Chi Minh City on May22. Addressing the event, Nguyen Van Hoa, Deputy Headof the Cultivation Department under the Ministry of Agriculture andRural Development (MARD) said that cocoa has been grown widely inVietnam since 200. The country now has a totalcocoa-cultivating area of 25,000 hectares, mainly in the CentralHighlands, Southeastern and Mekong Delta regions, he noted. Vietnam targets to expand the area to 35,000 hectares by 2015 and50,000 hectares by 2020, harvesting an output of 26,000 tonnes and52,000 tonnes of cocoa, respectively, he added. Hoasaid in order to fulfil the goal, his department has focused on creatingnew varieties and researching farming techniques, helping increaseproductivity, while encouraging farmers to grow cocoa. During the meeting, participants discussed and shared experience inmeasures to effectively apply the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP),food safety methods and management of diseases on cocoa trees. They also heard reports on the ASEAN’s Common Effective PreferentialTariff, non-tariff barriers and outcomes of the pilot cocoa cultivationprogrammes in Indonesia and Malaysia.-VNA