Hanoi (VNA) - Minister ofAgriculture and Rural Development (MARD) Nguyen Xuan Cuong has said that effortsto attract investment in agriculture were not yielding sufficient fruit, urgingauthorities to focus on unbuckling bottlenecks to ease investment. 

“We are implementing the restructuring ofagricultural production in the direction of chains and concentrated form,” Cuongsaid at a conference held in Hanoi on September 5.

“In such restructuring, the production’sorganisational components include  business, cooperative and farmersassociations as the backbone and nucleus of the chain. However, theirintegration is only successful if there are leading enterprises and anappropriate system of enterprise organisations and cooperatives,” said Cuong.

Cuong said although a Government decree onencouraging enterprises to invest in agriculture and rural areas becameeffective in February 2014, fewer than 5,000 enterprises are operating inagro-forestry and fisheries, accounting for less than 1 percent of enterprisesnationwide.

An additional disheartening sign was the 11.3percent growth in the number of enterprises that were dissolved during thatperiod, Cuong said.

The scale of agricultural enterprises was mostlysmall, with 50 percent having less than 10 employees. Many have weak links withfarmers and a limited ability to find and access market information.

According to Minister Cuong, the capacity forscience and technology application of enterprises in agriculture, forestry andfishery was also still low, with 75 percent of enterprises using machineryfully depreciated. Domestic enterprises, especially small, medium andmicro-enterprises were still struggling to replace two to three-generations-oldtechnology.

[VN’s agriculture needs sustainable solutions]

The mobilisation of external resources foragricultural and rural development was also inadequate, said the minister,adding that social investment in agriculture and rural areas was very low -only about 5.4-5.6 percent of the total national investment.

Speaking about a revised draft decree onencouraging businesses to invest in agriculture and rural areas, which has beensubmitted to the Government by the MARD and the Ministry of Planning andInvestment, Cuong said during the drafting process, many workshops were held tocollect opinions from associations and enterprises, but Deputy Prime MinisterVuong Dinh Hue still required further consultations.

Commenting on the investment environment inagriculture, Duong Van Tri, from Loc Troi Group said the promotion ofinvestment in agriculture needed reforms in land and farm policy.

Provincial authorities should be assigned toestablish agricultural land brokerage agencies to promote the transfer and saleof land in rural areas, said Tri.

Loans with preferential interest rates should beoffered to agricultural investment enterprises, he said, suggesting 4 percentinterest compared to the current State interest of 8 percent.

Tri also said the agriculture investment decreehad not helped mobilise the participation of all economic sectors, while someof regulations were too complicated for investors.-VNA