Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The key role of collectives in Vietnam's socialist-orientatedmarket economy has been reinforced through the success of cooperatives up anddown the country, though their further potential remains untapped.

Thedevelopment of cooperatives was a key target of localities. In order to promotethe local economy and overcome the ineffective operations of the currentcooperatives, provinces focused on training workforce, mobilising financialsources and fostering administrative qualifications and management methods.

According to areport by the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance, by June 2021 there were over 26,000cooperatives nationwide, of which more than 17,000 were agricultural cooperatives,over 7,000 were non-agricultural cooperatives and 1,100 were people's creditfund cooperatives with over 6.8 million members, creating jobs for over 2.4million employees.

It is clearthat the cooperatives have been participating in the One Commune, One Product(OCOP) programme, a national programme for Hunger Eradication and PovertyReduction and the Programme of New Rural Development.

Many provinceshave seen progress in the expansion of cooperatives.

Currently, BinhThuan province has 201 cooperatives engaging in all economic sectors and fieldswith total capital of over 3 trillion VND (132 million USD) and over 50,000members.

In theagricultural production field, more than 30 cooperatives are participating inlinkage chains to organise production associated with the value chains, tocreate a larger volume of quality agricultural products and higher economicvalue.

Many productsof these cooperatives have been recognised by the OCOP programme asprovincial-level three and four-star products.

In particular,25 people's credit funds, which are present in all communes and districts inthe province, have played important role in actively supporting cooperativemembers in production and business activities, as well as contributing to thegovernment to repel black credits.

However, Ho CongDuong, Chairman of Binh Thuan province’s Cooperative Alliance, said that mostcooperatives are small-scale with little capital and outdated equipment, andhave not yet built a sustainable basis for operations.

Some cooperativeshad not yet connected their members with the market, Duong said.

This leads toa very loose bond between the members and cooperatives, he said.

These areinherent limitations that the alliance had noticed and was looking forsolutions to remove the shortcomings, Duong added.

Meanwhile,Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc, Director of the Supporting Centre of Cooperative Allianceof Lam Dong province, said that product consumption was one of the mostimportant service activities of the cooperatives in order to help membersovercome the situation of 'good harvest, low prices', while alliances betweencooperatives play an important role in supporting product consumption.

“Thecoordination between the departments, agencies, the alliance and thecooperatives is very important in bringing efficiency in the promotion,advertisement and consumption of products,” Ngoc said.

“In addition,the cooperatives and their members needed to realise the importance of linkingmembers together and organising production and consumption of the value chainas well as helping members produce with co-operatives’ development drive,” shesaid.

According toNgọc, the alliance should further promote cooperatives’ products via fairs,seminars and exhibitions.

Vo Thi Anh Hong,Chairwoman of the Cooperative Alliance of Tay Ninh province, said that thealliance needed to take advantage of capital from the National Target Programmeon New-style Rural Area Building to coordinate with relevant agencies tobuild a new-style cooperative that promoted production associating with valuechains and high technology application.

According toThich Duc Thien, National Assembly (NA) delegate of Dien Bien province, for Vietnam'seconomy, in terms of size and the relationship between the production groups,the development of cooperatives is vital to solving the basic developmentissues of rural areas.

Developing thelocal economy and cooperatives is an effective lever to assisting the centraleconomy, including the state's key economic groups, Thien said.

This was evenmore evident during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, he said.

“When thecooperatives paid attention to developing, they create a driving force for thecountry’s agriculture, including the development of organic agriculture, OCOPprogramme and hi-tech agriculture,” the NA delegate said.

Thecooperative model is very suitable in rural areas and will promote the effortsand creativity of farming households, who are the owners of agriculturalproduction activities.

These farminghouseholds will also receive effective support from cooperatives and therebyreceive maximum support from the State via the National Target Programmes,Sustainable Poverty Reduction Programme, National Programme of New RuralDevelopment and Socio-economic Development Programme in Ethnic Minority andMountainous Areas, as well as being able to promote links with businesses andfully meet the requirements of international trade and economic integration.

However, thereare also some shortcomings in developing cooperatives.

Mostcooperatives operate on a small scale with little capital and poormanagement. This leads to weaknesses in setting up production and businessstrategies, especially in the period of international integration.

Therefore,fostering human and financial resources and updating management methods needsupport and investment from the State.

Nguyen ThanhNam, an NA delegate of Phu Tho province, said that it is necessary topromote collective economic development with various forms of cooperation,though success should be built around cooperatives based on members' andcollective ownership, and widely linking households to promote production andbusiness to adapt to the new situation.

In order forthe cooperatives to properly develop their role and promote the development ofthe household economy, the Government, both ministries and branches, shouldcontinue to pay attention to this area, including effectively implementingpromulgated policies, especially those related to improving human resources forco-operatives, application of scientific and technology in production,investment, infrastructure development in agricultural production, andsustainable product consumption, Nam said./.